Soak up CO2 with sponges, says CSIRO A football field in a gram
Australian science outfit the CSIRO is claiming a win,
demonstrating a material it says offers a new approach to carbon
capture: a sponge. The idea of the “sponge” – really a material
called a metal-organic framework – is very straightforward. It
absorbs gases at the point of release, such as capturing flue
gases in a power station, and releases captured CO2 on exposure
to sunlight. If it can be scaled up, that means the gases can be
captured in one place and released in a safe environment (for
example, the storage facility) somewhere else. In its release,
the CSIRO explains that the MOF solves one of the challenges of
carbon capture. Current technologies such as amine fluids, which
capture flue gases quite efficiently, have to be heated to
release the gases, a process the science agency says can use as
much as 30 percent of a generator’s capacity. The MOFs eliminate
the “parasitic energy load of adsorbent regeneration”, because
they release the