SusChEM: Integrated Materials and Process Systems Development for Sustainable Carbon Capture

The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased rapidly in recent decades and continues to rise. A vision receiving serious attention today for slowing this increase is to capture the CO2 at large point sources - especially electric power plants - and store it in stable geological formations. Before CO2 can be sequestered, it must be separated from the other species in the flue gas (primarily nitrogen and water, with other trace gases). Economical carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) from power-plant flue gas could thus provide one mid-term solution to our energy problems in the coming decades, allowing humanity to continue using fossil energy until renewable energy technologies mature. For this reason, CCS is an important research topic. Although several technologies exist that are capable of removing CO2 from power plant flue gas, adsorption processes based on porous solids are a promising technology for lowering the cost and energy requirements to economical levels. The premise of this proposal is that game-changing improvement of adsorption separation processes for CCS will require simultaneous development of new materials and specially designed processes that take advantage of these new materials.