Researchers have developed a new efficient and save method to capture carbon from the atmosphere.
Carbon capture involves trapping carbon dioxide at its emission source, transporting it to a storage location (usually deep underground) and isolating it.
Carbon spheres are at the heart of carbon capture technology, but the current method for creating carbon spheres has a number of drawbacks.
They can be expensive, impractical or perform poorly in capturing carbon.
They found that 800 °C was the optimum temperature for forming carbon spheres.
This new approach has several advantages, it is alkali-free and doesn’t need a catalyst to trigger the process. It uses a cheap and safe feedstock that is already available on the market and it is also a rapid and safe procedure.
Dr Saeid Khodabakhshi from the Energy Safety Research Institute at Swansea University, who led the research, said: ‘Carbon spheres are fast becoming vital products for a green and sustainable future. Our research shows a green and sustainable way of making them.
‘We demonstrated a safe, clean and rapid way of producing the spheres. Crucially, the micropores in our spheres mean they perform very well in capturing carbon. Unlike other CVD methods, our procedure can produce spheres at large scale without relying on hazardous gas and liquid feedstocks.
‘Carbon spheres are also being examined for potential use in batteries and supercapacitors. So in time, they could become essential to renewable energy storage, just as they already are for carbon capture.’
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