Oregon State University researchers have developed a new carbon capture material designed to remain effective in highly humid industrial emissions, potentially addressing a major challenge for point-source carbon capture systems.
The university has filed a patent application covering the material, which is known as BVR-X.
Research describing the material was published in Angewandte Chemie.
BVR-X is a metal-organic framework, or MOF, a class of crystalline materials containing nanoscale pores capable of adsorbing gases.
The new material is designed so that water and carbon dioxide move into different regions within its pores.
That internal separation prevents water from occupying the sites needed to capture carbon dioxide, allowing BVR-X to continue functioning in humid flue gas.
Humidity has been a major obstacle for many MOF-based carbon capture systems because water can interfere with carbon dioxide adsorption.
Industrial facilities can dry flue gas before processing it, but that additional step can significantly increase the cost of carbon capture.
Oregon State researchers tested BVR-X in a highly humid gas stream containing only 4% carbon dioxide, a concentration relevant to natural gas combustion.
The material continued capturing carbon dioxide under those conditions.
Researchers also found that BVR-X could be regenerated and reused while retaining its performance through dozens of capture-and-release cycles.
The research was led by Kyriakos Stylianou, a professor of chemistry at Oregon State and director of the university’s Materials Discovery Laboratory.
Collaborators included Oregon State researchers Ankit Yadav, Emmanuel Musa, Andrzej Gładysiak, Micah Hickethier, Chun-Wai Chang and Kai Shen Choong, along with scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Oregon and the ARAMCO Research and Development Center.
The work received funding from Saudi Aramco, the Murdock Charitable Trust and a donor-advised fund established through the Oregon State University Foundation by alumni Brian and Marilyn Kleiner.
KEY QUOTES:
“This internal organization helps the material work under conditions that more closely resemble real industrial emissions.”
“The capture of CO2 is critical for meeting net-zero emission targets. MOFs have shown a lot of promise because of their porosity and their structural versatility.”
“Water usually makes capturing carbon dioxide more difficult. Our new material does something unusual: It responds to water by changing in a way that lets it keep capturing CO2 effectively even under very humid conditions.”
“Where separating a small amount of CO2 in the presence of substantial water is particularly challenging.”
“And the material can be regenerated and reused, maintaining performance through dozens of capture-and-release cycles and tolerating demanding conditions. Those are important qualities for practical carbon-capture technologies.”
Kyriakos Stylianou, Professor of Chemistry at Oregon State University and Director of the Materials Discovery Laboratory
