This powder removes as much carbon dioxide from the air as a tree

A typical large tree can absorb as much 40 kg of carbon dioxide Of the air over the course of a year. Now scientists at UC Berkeley say they can do the same job with less than half a pound of fine yellow powder.

The powder is designed to trap greenhouse gases in its microscopic pores, then release it when it's ready to be held somewhere where it can't contribute to global warming. In tests, the material was still in good condition after 100 such cycles, according to engadget. study Published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

“It performs beautifully,” he said. Omar YaghiA reticulochemistry at the University of California at Berkeley and lead author of the study. “Based on the stability and behavior of the material right now, we think it will last for thousands of cycles.”

The powder, called COF-999, can be deployed in the types of large-scale direct air capture plants that are emerging to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

Keeping the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere below 450 parts per million is necessary to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and prevent some of the dire consequences of climate change, scientists say. Measurements made at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii indicate that carbon dioxide levels are currently present 423 ppm.

“You have to take carbon dioxide out of the air, there's no way around that,” said Yaghi, who is also a senior scientist at the University of Berkeley. Bakkar Institute for Digital Materials for the Planet. “Even if we stop emitting carbon dioxide, we still need to remove it from the air. We don't have any other options.”

Klaus Lacknerfounding director of Center for negative carbon emissions Researchers from Arizona State University agree that direct air capture will become an important tool for sequestering carbon and cooling the planet once important hurdles are overcome. He said advances in the new study may help.

“They open the door to a new family of methods,” said Lackner, who was not involved in the research.

When viewed under a scanning electron microscope, the powder resembles tiny basketballs with billions of holes in them, said study leader Zhihui Zhou, a materials chemist working on his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley.

These structures are held together by some of the strongest chemical bonds in nature, including those that turn carbon atoms into diamonds. Attached to the scaffolds are compounds called amines.

When air flows through structures, most… Its components pass unhindered. But amines, which are basic, bond to carbon dioxide, which is acidic.

These carbon dioxide molecules will remain in place until scientists loosen them by applying heat. Then they can vacuum it up for safekeeping, probably Pump them deep into the ground“Zhou said.

Once the carbon dioxide is removed from the powder, the whole process can start again.

To test COF-999's carbon removal capabilities, the researchers packed the powder into a stainless steel tube about the size of a straw and exposed it to outside Berkeley air for 20 continuous days.

Upon entering the tube, Berkeley's air contained carbon dioxide at concentrations ranging from 410 ppm to 517 ppm. When he came out the other side, scientists couldn't detect any carbon dioxide at all, Zhou said.

The powder has many advantages over other materials, according to its creators.

Its porous design increases its surface area, which means more places to hold carbon dioxide molecules. As a result, it captures carbon dioxide at a rate “at least 10 times faster” than other materials used to capture direct air, Chu said.

Yaghi added that team members have continued to make improvements, and are on track to double their capacity next year.

Another advantage is that COF-999 will loosen its grip on carbon dioxide when heated to about 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Similar materials must be heated to 250 degrees Fahrenheit to extract the carbon, Zhou said.

The powder is also more durable. Zhu said the team tested a newer version that ran for 300 cycles before the experiment ended.

This is a promising sign, Lackner said.

“Getting 100 cycles and seeing no deterioration suggests you can have thousands of cycles,” he said. “Whether you can get hundreds of thousands of cycles, we don't know.”

Deploying it on an industrial scale would require designing some kind of large metal box that air can pass through without blowing all the powder away, Chu said. These boxes should be grouped together in quantities that evoke a modern-day chemical or petroleum plant.

Towering structures of fans and trays capture carbon dioxide inside a direct air capture plant in Tracy, California, which opened last year.

(Paul Kuroda/For The Times)

A version of COF-999 could be ready for live air capture stations within two years, Yaghi said. He could not estimate the cost of mass production, but said it did not require any expensive or exotic materials.

Yaghi founded a company based in Irvine AtokoTo commercialize his research on carbon capture and other technologies. Atoko helped fund the new study. (Other financial supporters include the Bakkar Institute and the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology.)

In addition, UC Berkeley has filed a patent application for COF-999, which names Yagi and Zhou as inventors.

Lackner said the entire live-air capture process would have to become “10 times cheaper than it is now” before it can make a real impact on Hundreds of billions of tons of carbon dioxide Which scientists would like to clean from the atmosphere.

More efficient carbon dioxide-harvesting materials would help, but Lackner said he spends more time worrying about problems like heat lost when temperatures rise to harvest carbon so it can be injected underground.

“There are thousands of things that feed into this,” he said.