Scientists at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have accomplished a new feat in their attempts to make carbon capture more widely available and inexpensive.

They have developed a brand-new technology that effectively gathers CO2 at the lowest cost to date and transforms it into methanol - one of the most commonly used chemicals in the world.

(Photo : BAY ISMOYO/AFP via Getty Images)
This photo taken on September 21, 2021 shows smoke rising from chimneys at the Suralaya coal power plant in Cilegon.

Recycling Method

One of the most important factors in reducing global warming is capturing carbon emissions before it floats into the atmosphere. However, a crucial first step is to provide incentives for the biggest emitters to use carbon capture technologies. The expensiveness of capture technologies has long been a deterrent to their general adoption.

Scientists at PNNL claim that methanol may just be the perfect solution due to its wide range of applications as a fuel, solvent, and vital component in plastics, paint, building supplies, and automobile parts. 

David Heldebrant, a chemist at PNNL who is in charge of the research group developing the new technique, likens the method to recycling. 

"Instead of extracting oil from the ground to make these chemicals, we're trying to do it from CO2 captured from the atmosphere or from coal plants, so it can be reconstituted into useful things. You're keeping carbon alive, so to speak, so it's not just 'pull it out of the ground, use it once, and throw it away," Heldebrant said in a press release statement.

The new technology is built to fit into steel plants, cement kilns, and power plants that use coal, gas, or biomass as fuel. The system absorbs CO2 molecules before they are released and transforms them into usable, marketable chemicals using a capture solvent from PNNL.

According to Heldebrant, using this technology will lower emissions. However, it might also encourage the creation of additional carbon capture technologies and create a market for CO2-containing products.

PNNL said that a market like this would make it easier to reconstitute carbon captured by predicted direct air capture technology into products with a longer lifespan.

Read Also: US Inflation Reduction Act Aims To Use 'Carbon Capture Tech' To Reduce Emissions

All About Methanol

Methanol is one of the most produced chemicals by volume in the world. Its many applications make it a "platform material." The group may also turn CO2 into methane, formate, and other chemicals in addition to methanol.

This technique still needs to be optimized and scaled, and it can take a while before it becomes commercially available.

However, Casie Davidson, manager of PNNL's Carbon Management and Fossil Energy market area, noted that the team's integrated approach offers up a new field of CO2 conversion chemistry, and replacing current chemical commodities is only the beginning. 

According to a DOE review, commercial devices remove carbon from flue gas for about $46 per metric ton of CO2. The PNNL team's objective is to steadily reduce costs by improving the economic viability and efficiency of the capture process. 

By 2021, the team had reduced the cost of capture to $47.10 per metric ton of CO2. The cost of operating the methanol system employing several PNNL-developed capture solvents is being investigated in a new study published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, and it has now decreased to under $39 per metric ton of CO2. 

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