Carbon Capture: Materials and Process Engineering

Abstract

Avoiding the catastrophic climate change consequences of greenhouse gas emissions, while continuing to use fossil fuels to meet the growing global energy demands of the twenty-first century, will require routine capture and storage of carbon dioxide (CO2). This chapter describes the materials and processes used for CO2 capture from power plants and industrial processes, both in the short term (amine-based solvents, calcium carbonate looping) and those likely to be exploited in the decades ahead (ionic liquids, metal oxides and chemical looping, solid sorbents, gas hydrates, metal–organic frameworks, gas membranes, biological systems such as algae and enzymes, cryogenic processes and building CO2 into materials such as urea and polycarbonate plastics). The potential for the integrated design and optimisation of materials and processes for capturing CO2 from a range of industrial sources is also described.