Irvine, California, October 19, 2022 – In addition to recommending a drastic reduction and eventual end to the consumption of fossil fuels for energy, transport and industry, some scientists and engineers have advocated sucking carbon dioxide from the air and store it underground to fight climate change.
Researchers from the University of California, Irvine, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory conducted a detailed examination of the chemical processes involved in the conversion of CO2 gas in a solid that could be buried below the Earth’s surface, where it would remain indefinitely instead of leaking into the atmosphere. In a recent article published in Reviews of Nature ChemistryUCI and PNNL scientists describe the transformation that takes place when CO2 encounters ultra-thin films of water on underground rocks containing various types of metals.
“Certain types of rocks, such as those containing basalt, are rich in divalent metal cations that naturally convert CO2 when it comes to stable metal carbonate,” said co-lead author MJ Abdolhosseini Qomi, UCI Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “Understanding how this process works at the molecular level will help us use this beneficial chemistry to help solve the runaway problem of climate change.”
The researchers suggest that there may be regions – on land and in the oceans – with the right amounts and ratios of metallic elements and water to facilitate a natural process of carbon solidification, resulting in sequestration. safely huge amounts of greenhouse gases.
“Theoretically, the CO2 storage capacity in flooded continental basalts, oceanic igneous plateaus and basalt ridges exceeds 105 gigatons, which is significantly more carbon dioxide than is emitted by all fossil fuel resources on Earth, studies show earlier,” Qomi said.
MJ Abdolhosseini Qomi, UCI Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, says: “Certain types of rocks, such as those containing basalt, are rich in divalent metal cations which naturally convert CO2 into stable metal carbonate material. Understanding how this process works at the molecular level will help us use this beneficial chemistry to help solve the problem of runaway climate change. Steve Zylius / UCI
He added that in addition to these natural mineral carbon sinks, the future may bring new techniques to facilitate conversion above ground using either natural rock or synthetic analogues: “We can store this carbonate or consider ways to use it as a raw material with variety of industrial and structural engineering applications.
Russ DetwillerUCI Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said: “In a lab, we can adjust the water to CO2 and observe the formation of carbonates in real time. During the process, we can see which chemicals and compounds are present at different stages; this provides essential information on reaction pathways.
In the article, the researchers propose to augment laboratory experiments with modeling. Given the difficulty in visualizing the interactions between individual molecules, computational chemistry models can fill a gap by offering detailed predictions of process outcomes.
“There are important synergies between models and studies in the lab or in the field,” said Qomi, a frequent collaborator of PNNL scientists. “Experimental data grounds models in reality, while models provide deeper insight into experiments.”
Co-lead author Quin Miller, a chemist with PNNL, said: “Mitigation of human emissions fundamentally requires understanding how to store carbon. There is a pressing need to integrate simulations, theory and experiments to explore mineral carbonation issues.
The study, supported by the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science, also involved researchers from the University of Wyoming.
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