The ‘sponge’ collects CO2

Collecting carbon using a material called MOF, or metal organic framework, is a promising new technology to capture carbon dioxide (CO2).

Berkeley Lab is pursuing negative emission technologies and related research to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. According to Jeffrey Long, senior scientist in the Berkeley Laboratory’s Materials Science Department, UC Berkeley Professor of Chemistry, MOFs are highly porous solid materials that act like a sponge. They are capable of absorbing large amounts of a specific gas molecule, like CO2. A special feature of MOFs is its high internal surface area. Therefore, if properly designed, a small amount of MOF can remove large amounts of CO2 from the flue gases produced during the burning of fossil fuels. “We have shown that MOFs can capture and release CO2, using a much smaller temperature change than is required by other technologies. This offers a great advantage over conventional methods of CO2 capture. Variations of MOF can be effective in removing CO2 from other gas mixtures, including biogas, natural gas and even directly from the air, ”explained Mr. Long. However, this expert emphasized, reducing the cost of direct gas collection is essential, because this process is extremely expensive. The cost of removing CO2 with such a technology is at 500 – 1,000 USD / ton. Therefore, Mr. Long said that in the future, researchers will create more efficient materials. As a result, it helps to reduce costs below 100 USD / ton. Besides, the main issue is the amount of energy required to regenerate the adsorbent. This means that the scientists want to release CO2 in its pure form. As a result, the material can then be reused to capture more CO2. “One of our research goals is to develop materials with high capacity, high capture rate, fast kinetics for CO2 adsorption and low regeneration temperature. At the same time, limit the co-adsorption of water so as not to waste energy on the desorption process “, Mr. Long said. According to the scientist, it is possible to find a way to achieve below $ 100 for each ton of CO2 removed from the air. However, scientists will have to do much of the research needed to achieve that. “We need to really rethink some of the ways materials are designed and understand how to manipulate things like delta-S (entropy) to adsorb CO2, so that less heat is needed to release CO2,” Mr. Long stressed.