I am wondering if it is possible to Engineer a device that could remove Carbon from the air. I only know of the bubbling CO2 through Calcium Hydroxide. I know plants do it, and the above experiment. I would like to know how else this might be done. Any takers? I am adding my last post from page 3 here, because I really would like some input... O.K. Debating whether science is required is off topic. What if we confined the air into threads, and used plates (positive/negative) to deflect and divert the problematic diatomic atoms. We would still have to sequester the carbon from the target area, but we might be able to separate the problem air first. Yadda yadda. saving the treatment of 99.99% of the air Is this a possibility? I have not seen anyone with this type of pre-sorting ideas (patent pending). Would exciting the atoms help or hinder? I am kind of thinking to align the atoms poles first with magnets, and then have ..... anyways. There is a decent proposal. Or is there another way to use the atomic differences. i.e. mass, lower energy, etc. to otherwise filter out the diatomic particles? Please tell me I'm off my rocker before I start renting equipment.lol
lithium cells in ISS Lithium hydroxide canisters http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/news/station/2002/iss02-50.html Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Unfortunately, there aren't any methods that are both cheap enough AND effective. They all require a large amount of energy. And since most energy is generated through burning fossil fuels, the entire process produces a negative gain. You could grow trees, cut them and store them deep in oxygen-deprived water but I'm still not sure that even that would produce an overall positive gain in CO2 reduction.
The double bond in CO2 make it incredible stable, but I have heard people talking about this idea. One way that I recall had to do with building fake trees. Basically, one would make a surace which catalyzed the process CO2--> C(s) + O2. Basically, one would grow solid carbon on the leaves of these trees, which would have to be cleaned/replaced periodically. I don't know the technical details, but I seem to remember that the inventor thought the technology wasn't too far off. I could be wrong on this, so correct me please!
Hello, Ben, That's interesting but I've have to see some solid info on it. If it actually works, all you'd need do is coat a slow, continously running belt - possibly driven by solar cells - and have it pass over a knife edge or some other method of removal. Just allow the carbon to fall into a deep pit and forget it.
Whats Bransons challenge? P.S. Thanks for the information. I was just reading this. I am guessing this Branson Challenge is based on it, if it is a "save the world" type challenge. http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/01/carbon_seq/7b1.pdf It was from an online library, however I just found the above link to the same thing. Just curious. Thanks for the info. I have a bunch of children, so I thought I'd take a look at what's chemically wrong (allegedly). I also like to invest in growing technologies, and this field looks kind of ripe for some incredible government spending. If I can get some good dividends and save the world at the same time, I'm all for it. Thanks for more search term criteria Dragon and a unique idea BenTheMan. I kind of like the solution in the above link the best so far, but who knows.
Yeah I looked for a few minutes online but couldn't find any info. I seem to remember a segment on BBC. If anyone knows of any info, or if I am terribly mistaken, then let me knowPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! What about this----put this coating on a windmill, and let the windmill generate the power. I was thinking of this when I was writing the prevous post.
Thanks for the search terms. I was able to come up with this. If droplets of chemicals known as amines are sprayed through the flue gas in a chamber known as an absorption tower, the CO2 will stick to the amines, he said. Then, under heat, the amine-CO2 combination breaks apart, freeing the amine chemical to be routed back into the absorption tower to collect more CO2. from http://www.oxfordpress.com/news/content/shared/news/nation/stories/08/21COAL_SEQUESTER.html then this. searching "Amines co2" got 177000 hits. http://uregina.ca/ghgt7/PDF/papers/nonpeer/379.pdf could not find research on what you were talking about, but I will try further. Thanks.
Condense it by cooling the air? Disposing of the dry ice could be interesting. Maybe bury it it polar ice? If dry ice were sent to the bottom of the ocean, would the CO2 dissolve before bubbling to the surface?
The problem here is that you would still have to add energy to get from CO2 to C(s) and O2, since there is more energy in solid carbon and oxygen gas than in the equivalent amount of CO2. So you would need some sort of energy source, to the tune of 390 kJ per mole of CO2 eliminated.
Precisely, and well said. Oxidizing carbon is an exothermic reaction and the ONLY way to get back to the original elements is to resupply the energy that was 'lost' in the process. And that's why I said that trying to break that bond would result in a net loss of sequestering carbon (in that fashion) since the energy you have to supply would almost certainly come from burning fossil fuels. In other words, it's backing up instead of moving forward.
Yes, that would be fine - as long as it's growing faster than it dies. But you will soon reach a point where the growth rate / death rate equalize and then there's no gain. Sort of like a pound in and a pound out.
Heh... I looked at it and thought it looked like the interior of a Saturn V rocket... then I saw the duct tape around a box near some canisters.