Tag Archives: CO2

CO2 sucker could just clean the air

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Researchers in California have produced a cheap plastic capable of removing large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air. Down the road, the new material could enable the development of large-scale batteries and even form the basis of “artificial trees” that lower atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in an effort to stave off catastrophic climate change.

These long-term goals attracted the researchers, led by George Olah, a chemist at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. Olah, who won the 1994 Nobel Prize in chemistry, has long envisioned future society relying primarily on fuel made from methanol, a simple liquid alcohol. As easily recoverable fossil fuels become scarce in the decades to come, he suggests that society could harvest atmospheric CO2 and combine it with hydrogen stripped from water to generate a methanol fuel for myriad uses.

Olah and his colleagues also work on making cheap, iron-based batteries that can store excess power generated by renewable energy sources and feed it into the electrical grid during times of peak demand. To function, the iron batteries grab oxygen from the air. But if even tiny amounts of CO2 get into the reaction, it kills the battery. In recent years, researchers have come up with good CO2 absorbers made from porous solids called zeolites and metal organic frameworks. But they’re expensive. So Olah and his colleagues set out to find a cheaper alternative.

They turned to polyethylenimine (PEI), a cheap polymer that is a decent CO2 absorber. But it only grabs CO2 at its surface. To boost PEI’s surface area, the USC team dissolved the polymer in a methanol solvent and spread it atop a batch of fumed silica, industrially produced porous solid made from microscopic droplets of glass fused together. When solvent evaporated, it left solid PEI with a high surface area.

When the researchers tested the new material’s CO2-grabbing abilities, they found that in humid air each gram of the material sopped up an average of 1.72 nanomoles of CO2. That’s above the 1.44 nanomoles per gram absorbed by a recent rival made from aminosilica and among the highest levels of CO2 absorption from air ever tested, the team reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Once saturated with CO2, the PEI-silica combo is easy to regenerate. The CO2 floats away after polymer is heated to 85 degree Celsius. Other solid CO2 absorbers must be heated to over 800 degree Celsius to drive off the CO2.

Running on wind power

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Wind power could meet about a fifth of the world’s electricity demand within 20 years, an industry group and environmental watchdog Green-peace predicted in a new report released on October 5. The global market for wind power grew 41.7 per cent in 2009, beating average annual growth of 28.6 per cent over the past 13 years, said Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). China ranked second in the world in installed wind generating capacity in 2009 and was the largest buyer of wind technology, Sawyer told reporters at the launch of GWEC and Green-peace’s Global Wind Energy Out- look 2010 report. “We would expect China to continue to be the largest market and perhaps even be the (overall) largest market in the world by the end of this year,” he said.

The report’s “advanced scenario”— its most optimistic outlook — projects the world’s combined installed wind turbines would produce 2,600 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity by 2020 — equal to 11.5 to 12.3 percent of power demand. By 2030, wind energy would produce 5,400 TWh — 18.8 to 21.8 per cent of the world’s power supply, the report said. The more conservative “reference” scenario based on figures from the UN’s windfarmInternational Energy Agency saw wind power triple in the next decade to cover up to 4.8 percent of electricity — equal to Europe’s current total production.

The “moderate” scenario based on current industry figures would see wind power meet up to 9.5 per cent of the world’s power demand by 2020, the report said. “For more than the last 10 years, the actual performance of the wind industry has exceeded our advanced scenario every time,” said Sawyer. Under the advanced forecast, 1.6 billion tones of carbon dioxide emissions would be saved each year, the report said. This would increase to 3.3 billion tones of CO2 saved each year by 2030. The cumulative amounts of CO2 saved would be 10 billion tones by 2020 and 34 billion tones by 2030, the report said.

Paris hosts sustainable fashion show

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Ethical fashion is riding the recession in style, with a major show opening in Paris on September 25. The Ethical Fashion Show, the world’s largest event devoted solely to sustainable fashion, is now in its seventh year. Over a hundred brands represented the four-day long fashion show that has outgrown its humble origins in disused ware-houses to occupy the new Docks en Seine building, home of the French Fashion Institute.

The clothes on display ranged from the impressive but quirky — a jaw-dropping couture dress made from recycled film stock — to the more wearable and commercial, like 50s-style skirts in organic cotton and silk from French/Vietnamese brand All, and British company Terra Plana’s recycled leather shoes.

This year the show was taken over by Messe Frankfurt, the world’s largest trade show organiser — a sign that despite the recession, ethical fashion is still a growth market. “It’s become more professional, it looks a lot more like a trade show now,” said Gilles Richard of childrenswearbrand La Queue du Chat, who have been exhibiting here for four years.         sustainable fashion show

Several brands from Britain also made the trip. Sarah Ratty of Ciel, who was showcasing a stunning new digital print, colour-fixed with algae, said she had been lured here for the first time by the involvement of Messe Frankfurt. “It’s nice to be able to have a platform abroad to showcase great British design with a green twist,” she said.

Other highlights included an ingenious dress by Danish company Diffus, embedded with tiny lights that visibly react to the CO2 levels in the environment around it. Celebrating the UN’s Year of Biodiversity, there was also a particular focus on sustainable fabrics, including loose-knit scarfs and jumpers made from nettle, pineapple and super-soft banana fibres.