When you think of technology to combat climate change, your first thought might be bright solar panels or futuristic vehicles that work without combustion. But some of the most important parts of environmentally friendly technology are relatively underestimated.
One of the biggest problems to be solved is what to do with all the carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuel factories. Many ideas have emerged on how to capture and extract carbon dioxide from both the air and energy production, with various criticisms. The latest idea is that the repair could be as simple as a revd-up piece of cotton fabric.
Using cotton textiles and an enzyme called carbonic anhydrase — which exists in the human body and helps regulate carbon dioxide — Jialong Shen and Sonya Salmon of North Carolina State University have created a piece of fabric that can efficiently collect and capture emissions. They published their new findings in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemical Engineering earlier this month.
The material is wrapped in a roll which is then placed in a tube, almost like wet paper towels inside a glass funnel. As the rest of the gas from fossil fuel production enters through the bottom, carbonic anhydrase works to convert carbon dioxide and water into bicarbonate. The mixture of water and bicarbonate then drips from the funnel and can be used to create more energy or react with calcium to form limestone.
[Related: Tech to capture and reuse carbon is on the rise. But can it help the world reach its climate goals?]
“We deliberately chose cotton because it can carry a lot of water and can spread water into a really thin film,” says Salmon, an associate professor of textile engineering, chemistry and science at NC State. “It allows the gas to react or interact very closely with the water.”
The material was able to capture 52.3 percent of carbon dioxide with a single filter, and 81.7 percent with a double layer, when air was pushed through the device at a rate of four liters per minute. Even after washing and reusing the fabric five times, the researchers still saw a high level of performance.
While some carbon capture technologies may use rarer materials or more complex methods, the process of making cotton fabric is about as old as time. Not to mention, we already produce and make tons, whether for clothing or industrial purposes, which means that the supply chain that would create these filters more or less already exists.
“The production rate is not a bottleneck at all,” says Shen, a postdoctoral researcher in textiles. “That is the main advantage over other types of materials.” People have been working to make large-scale carbon capture materials … for textile-based materials, we can use existing textile plants and create new applications for companies. ”
Capturing carbon from the air will not solve all our problems: We must drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels and change the way we consume energy if we want to avoid the worst climate scenario. But as emissions grow and efforts to reduce them become more important, all kinds of technologies need to be considered, Salmon says. Simple solutions like this can be small pieces of the puzzle and help us make some progress in protecting the planet while focusing on more radical endeavors.
“We want energy. We all love our cell phones. We all love to drive our own cars. We all love our hot showers, ”she says. “Unless we are all ready to give up immediately. We have to do this. This is a situation that must be applied. It’s not one technology that won’t save us. We have to do them all. ”