The development of new solid sorbents for CO2, SO2 and other gaseous pollutants

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Man-made Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) threaten to change our climate on a scale that will cause tremendous human suffering over the next century. GHGs are created through the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gasoline, primarily in electrical power plants and automobiles. This research will develop new chemical systems that capture GHGs such as CO2, as well as other dangerous pollutants (i.e.SO2, NOx) and keep them in an easily managed solid form that can be transported to facilities where controlled and safe release of the pollutant can be carried out for storage/disposal. The research is developing a unique new theory for the prediction of the energetics of these and other chemical reaction systems. This predictive ability will facilitate the design of new chemical systems in which the absorption and release of trapped pollutants happens under very mild conditions, needing very little added energy. This attribute gives these new systems a critical advantage over existing carbon capture technologies, since large amounts of energy are needed for the release of trapped pollutants in these older technologies. This required energy must be generated by methods that themselves produce large amounts of GHGs (i.e. burning fossil fuels to make steam, creating electricity from coal or oil, etc). In fact, it has been shown that a conventional electrical power plant has to sacrifice between 9 and 25% of its energy output in order to capture most (but not all) of the GHGs in its flue gas. The new chemical pollution abatement systems that are developed in this program will allow a drastic reduction in those GHGs co-generated by the heating processes needed for regeneration of the trapping agent, making them a key weapon in the war on GHG emissions over the next century.