In addition, a group of researchers at Rice University in Houston, USA, also developed a new chemical technology, which can transform waste plastics into a material that can effectively adsorb carbon dioxide gas and become an "adsorbent" for carbon dioxide.
James M. Tour, a synthetic organic chemist, his co-author Wala Algozeeb, graduate student Paul Savas and postdoctoral researcher Yuan Zhe reported on ACS Nano that exposing plastic waste to potassium acetate would produce particles with nano-scale pores to capture carbon dioxide molecules.
James M. Tour received a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Syracuse University, a doctorate in synthetic organic and organometallic chemistry from Purdue University, and postdoctoral training in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin and Stanford University. Later, he taught in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of South Carolina 1 1 year, 1999 and joined the Center for Nanotechnology of Rice University. At present, he is a professor of chemistry, computer science, materials science and nano-engineering at T.T. and W.F.Chao, with about 650 research publications and more than 200 patents.
20 15 James m. tour was elected to the national institute of inventors; In 20 19, he was named as one of the "50 most influential scientists in the world today"; In 2020, he became an academician of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and was awarded the Centennial Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry in the same year in recognition of his chemical innovation in medical and nanotechnology application materials; In 20021year, he was awarded the Ospel Prize by the American Chemical Society, which was awarded to "an outstanding chemist who made great achievements in the field of chemistry all his life and had a long-term impact on chemical science".
In this technology, they used potassium acetate, alias potassium acetate, which is a white powdery organic substance, which has the functions of being used as an analytical reagent, adjusting PH value, as a desiccant, a buffer and a catalyst. The researchers crushed the waste plastic and mixed it with potassium acetate at 600 degrees Celsius (1,12 degrees Fahrenheit) for 45 minutes. The obtained pores with a width of about 0.7 nm can be used to adsorb CO2 molecules from the atmosphere. The researchers said that this process will also produce a wax by-product, which can be recycled and made into detergent or lubricant.
At room temperature, these porous particles can hold 18% of their weight in CO2. Like amine-based materials, adsorbents can be reused. Heating it to about 75 degrees Celsius (167 degrees Fahrenheit) will release the captured carbon dioxide from the pores and regenerate about 90% of the material binding sites. This method is relatively simple and can be easily extended to industrial applications.
According to the researcher's estimation, the cost of using this material to capture carbon dioxide from point sources (such as flue gas after combustion) is $265,438+0 per ton, while the current process cost of extracting carbon dioxide from natural gas raw materials is about $80-65,438+060 per ton.
In order to achieve the goal of zero net greenhouse gas emission in 2050, the demand for carbon capture technology with economic benefits is increasing. If this technology can be popularized, it will help us solve two important environmental problems, plastic waste and carbon dioxide.