New material could capture carbon more efficiently (Day 287)

A cleaner fossil-fuelled future is something that I, along with many of my colleagues, aspire to achieve during my lifetime. Carbon capture, storage and use, and its potential to mitigate climate change figures strongly on my research agenda.

Nasser Khazeni Photo Credit | New Mexico State University
Nasser Khazeni
Photo Credit | New Mexico State University

So I was particularly pleased to learn that researchers from New Mexico State University (NMSU), US, have developed a new material that could capture carbon dioxide more efficiently and with greater capacity than any technology currently in place.

Now you may think this a bold claim, but the research focuses on adsorption as opposed to absorption – which is the most common method used for capturing carbon dioxide.

Nasser Khazeni, a chemical and materials engineering PhD student from NMSU, led and developed the research into this new technology, with specific focus on post-combustion separation of carbon dioxide.

He likens fossil fuel consumption and climate change to a chain of cause and effect initiated by human activity. Nasser says: “To resolve this issue, we need to take one of the links in this chain and mitigate it before it reaches the global warming stage. We’re addressing the middle link – capturing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”

In an adsorption process, molecules are adsorbed and physically bonded to a microporous (sponge-like) solid surface. Releasing or ‘desorbing’ these molecules from that solid surface is more energy efficient than removing molecules from within a liquid medium, which is what happens in existing carbon dioxide absorption processes.

zeoliteNasser concentrated on developing a novel solid adsorbent to capture carbon dioxide. He specifically looked into zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIF).

Zeolites are mircoporous minerals that have the ability to adsorb molecules onto its metal ion structure. They are commonly used as commercial adsorbents and catalysts.

Nasser successfully synthesised a new subclass of ZIF that incorporates a  carbonyl group in its metal ion structure, resulting in greater affinity and selectivity for adsorbing carbon dioxide. Its affinity with other gases, such as nitrogen and hydrogen, is negligible, so separation of carbon dioxide from gas mixtures can be more effective.

Through simulation, Nasser concluded that his new structure can adsorb more than 100 times more carbon dioxide than other similar structures. That’s quite a discovery, so it will come as little surprise to hear that his technology is provisionally patented.

Nasser believes that his research is very susceptible to copying and he is keen to protect his intellectual property. He said: “Just talking about a linker that nobody has tried, is enough for a good chemist to go out and try it. There’s competition, so we needed to protect it. Now that it’s protected, I can write a proposal and go to companies with commercial applications of the idea.”

I wish Nasser  and his research group every success in bringing this new technology to market.

Are you working in carbon capture? If you are, why not get in touch via the blog (or comment below) and share your research findings with me.

3 thoughts on “New material could capture carbon more efficiently (Day 287)”

  1. Anything that helps with carbon capture is going to be useful. However, storage and preferably use are also crtical steps.


  2. Hi,

    I was wondering what would happen after adsorption? Is the material to be disposed off of, or the CO2 reused in some way?



    1. Hi Raida,

      Thank you for your question.

      In terms of the material, if you are referring to zeolite, in an adsorption process the material is regenerated (through de-pressurisation and then re-pressurisation) and so can be used again and again until it is spent. Then the adsorbent bed containing zeolite would have to be replaced, how often would depend on its bed life. And the CO2 would either be stored for transportation, or reused/recycled within a process.

      I hope this answers your question.



Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s