Amines bound by buckyballs can absorb carbon dioxide from emissions at industrial plants and at natural gas wells, according to new research. Tests from one to 50 atmospheric pressures showed the newly developed compound captured a fifth of its weight in carbon dioxide but no measurable amount of methane.
The Rice lab of chemist Andrew Barron revealed in a proof-of-concept study that amine-rich compounds are highly effective at capturing the greenhouse gas when combined with carbon-60 molecules.
The research is the subject of an open-access paper today in Nature's online journal Scientific Reports.
"We had two goals," Barron said. "One was to make the compound 100 percent selective between carbon dioxide and methane at any pressure and temperature. The other was to reduce the high temperature needed by other amine solutions to get the carbon dioxide back out again. We've been successful on both counts."
Tests from one to 50 atmospheric pressures showed the Rice compound captured a fifth of its weight in carbon dioxide but no measurable amount of methane, Barron said, and the material did not degrade over many absorption/desorption cycles.
Carbon-60, the soccer ball-shaped molecule also known as buckminsterfullerene (or the "buckyball") was discovered at Rice by Nobel Prize laureates Richard Smalley, Robert Curl and Harold Kroto in 1985. The ultimate curvature of buckyballs may make them the best possible way to bind amine molecules that capture carbon dioxide but allow desirable methane to pass through.
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