Oxygen-separation membranes could aid in CO2 reduction
It may seem counterintuitive, but one way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere may be to produce pure carbon dioxide in powerplants that burn fossil fuels. In this way, greenhouse gases — once isolated within a plant — could be captured and stored in natural reservoirs, deep in the Earth’s crust. Such “carbon-capture” technology may significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cheap and plentiful energy sources such as coal and natural gas, and help minimize fossil fuels’ contribution to climate change. But extracting carbon dioxide from the rest of a powerplant’s byproducts is now an expensive process requiring huge amounts of energy, special chemicals and extra hardware. Now researchers at MIT are evaluating a system that efficiently eliminates nitrogen from the combustion process, delivering a pure stream of carbon dioxide after removing other combustion byproducts such as water and other gases. The centerpiece of the system is a...