[freebeard]

phys.org via Slashdot:

science.slashdot.org/story: Lab Turns Hard-To-Process Plastic Waste Into Carbon-Capture Master (phys.org)

What seems like a win-win for a pair of pressing environmental problems describes a Rice University lab's newly discovered chemical technique to turn waste plastic into an effective carbon dioxide (CO2) sorbent for industry. Rice chemist James Tour and co-lead authors Rice alumnus Wala Algozeeb, graduate student Paul Savas and postdoctoral researcher Zhe Yuan reported in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano that heating plastic waste in the presence of potassium acetate produced particles with nanometer-scale pores that trap carbon dioxide molecules. These particles can be used to remove CO2 from flue gas streams, they reported.
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The lab estimates the cost of carbon dioxide capture from a point source like post-combustion flue gas would be $21 a ton, far less expensive than the energy-intensive, amine-based process in common use to pull carbon dioxide from natural gas feeds, which costs $80-$160 a ton. Like amine-based materials, the sorbent can be reused. Heating it to about 75 degrees Celsius (167 degrees Fahrenheit) releases trapped carbon dioxide from the pores, regenerating about 90% of the material's binding sites. Because it cycles at 75 degrees Celsius, polyvinyl chloride vessels are sufficient to replace the expensive metal vessels that are normally required.

Four- to eight-fold decrease in cost of flu recovery.