Innovation Pipeline

The wondrous world of material research is on the move again. This time, Georgia Tech researchers have developed a new, low cost material for capturing carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of coal-fired plants and other generators of greenhouse gas.

The good news is the tubular reactor filled with the material called HAS absorbent is not a one time deal. Because of the material’s strong chemical bonds it can be used repeatedly for capturing carbon dioxide. That’s welcomed news because the existing materials used today for CO2 capture have a few big drawbacks such as being energy intensive, expensive and lack the stability for repeated use.

But before you wave goodbye to coal generated CO2 gas, there’s a couple significant hurdles for the new material and technology to make. And crossing the chasm of commercialization is not easy. Scaling the process and keeping the costs low are critical. But the good news is innovative materials like HAS are the kind of developments that will give industry a new weapon in tackling the global warming challenge one million carbon atoms at a time.

The material called hyperbranched aluminosilica (HAS) is the subject of a research paper in the March 19th issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Georgia Tech professor Christopher Jones along with grad students Jason Hicks and Jeffrey Drese worked with DOE scientists Daniel Fauth and McMahan Gray .

Researchers also say the material has strong commercial potential as it can be scaled in industrial environments to meet the big challenges of capturing CO2 from coal burning plants. The researchers also say that once the CO2 has been captured and removed from the stacks, it could be sequestered in several ways – one being the deep ocean; second is mined out in coal seams or, three, in depleted petroleum reservoirs. New materials have a lot to offer the world of traditional coal and oil fired electrical plants. And it’s still early days in this emerging area of technology, which is sure to deliver some big breakthroughs in the next couple of years. By Lee Bruno