A fortnight ago I wrote about prehistoric flatulence, which was totally relevant and important to our everyday lives, and no doubt affected all who read the article in a very profound way, especially as it pertained to an era that occurred more than 65 million years ago. But as we all know, the more recent burning of fossil fuels from organisms dating back to that time still continues to pollute the atmosphere in the form of CO2, one of the most abundant of greenhouse gases.
The world depends on fossil fuels. Much of our energy is harnessed from it and most of our materials are derived from it (think plastic, for example. What would we do without plastic?). However it is a very dirty resource which makes carbon capture and storage (CCS) an important thing to consider. CCS implementation could significantly decrease the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere by storing them underground. However, though CO2 pollution is a widespread and urgent problem, large-scale CCS operations are still very rare. Most governments, including manufacturing leaders like China, do not enforce strict environmental regulations that would require such systems, and there are few effective international agreements concerning them. The Kyoto Protocol, for instance, has only marginally affected industrial practices in the countries that adopted it, especially with an economic giant like the U.S. opting out of it. Even Canada backed out relatively recently, to the dismay of many.
With few legal requirements for CCS, most companies consider the investment as being too expensive. Otherwise, many current removal methods use too much energy themselves to be very effective. For example, amines and ammonia are compounds that have been studied for their potential ability to be used in CCS systems. Even the Norwegian CCS testing lab was set to employ them this year, but the process has been delayed indefinitely with a cost of over 985 million USD.
Luckily, a team at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has developed a solution that will hopefully be a solution to the problem. They’ve developed a catalyst, ‘Cyclen’, which is used to separate and capture CO2 from the vents of large fossil fuel power plants. Their inspiration in its deign came from nature itself: the new catalyst was inspired by carbonic anhydrase, a naturally-occurring catalyst in our lungs that removes CO2 from our blood as we breathe. It is also happens to be fastest-acting natural enzyme known to humans, which will hopefully increase Cyclen’s effectiveness against carbon dioxide. Cyclen differs from carbonic anhydrase in that it has proven to be more heat-resistant and it does not degrade as easily with changes in pH from the gases. Many tests have been done to confirm its stability.
However, though it is a promising solution to the current CCS problems, it is still very much in the testing phase, with some shortfalls that need to be corrected before it can be used commercially. One such problem is that it forms too thin of a layer as it clings to a gas-water surface. This poses a problem because it allows it to be semi-permeable to carbon dioxide molecules, meaning that some molecules will still escape. The team works to increase the percentage of molecules captured, and to further improve upon their product.
If it all works out, the Laboratory may certainly become a leader in carbon-capturing catalysts, but the fact still remains that despite these hopeful steps, CCS is still a long way away from becoming a global necessity.
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