#Industry News
CARBON NANOFIBERS MADE FROM CO2 PLUCKED FROM THE AIR
Big Plans To Convert Atmospheric CO2 Into Nanofibers, But Will It Work On An Industrial Scale?
What if we could turn the excess carbon in our atmosphere into something useful like nanofibers, a highly sought-after manufacturing material. Well, Prof. Stuart Licht of George Washington University and his team think they have the answer. They’ve come up with a new method, known as the Solar Thermal Electrochemical Process (STEM) that is powered by the sun and uses a small amount of electricity to run a current through a vat of a hot, molten salt. This causes CO2 to be absorbed, and the carbon nanofibers to steadily form on one of the electrodes. Currently this method can only produce 10 grams an hour, but there are plans to radically scale this up to where it could possibly have an impact on CO2 emissions.
Carbon nanofibers are increasingly being used in high-end products, such as electronic components and next-generation batteries, and could potentially make an even bigger impression on aircraft and car manufacturing in the form of strong, carbon composite materials. The idea of turning something negative (CO2 emissions) into something positive (nanofibers) really resonates with people, but it’s an area that has thrown up more coal than diamonds. Prof. Licht is convinced his design can work outside the lab. “It scales up very easily – the entire process is quite low energy.” However, other academics in associated disciplines have doubts whether the method could make a discernable difference to greenhouse emission levels, or if the model is even economically sound on an industrial scale.
Dr Katy Armstrong, a chemical engineer at the University of Sheffield, told the BBC. “As they are capturing CO2 from the air, the process will need to deal with huge volumes of gas to collect the required amount of carbon, which could increase process costs when scaled up.” Dr Paul Fennell, a chemical engineer and clean energy researcher at Imperial College London, went further, he said, “if your idea is to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and produce so many carbon nanofibres that you make a difference to climate change – I’d be extremely surprised if you could do that.” Prof Licht believes it’s worth pursuing all the same and feels “there’s a necessity to work together, to test this on a larger scale, to apply some societal resources to do that.”
