Catching more carbon with less sticky solvents
Thursday, November 17, 2016 - 06:51
in Physics & Chemistry
For coal- and natural-gas-fired power plants, scientists want a liquid that captures carbon dioxide. But the water-lean solvents they prefer thicken to the consistency of cold honey the more carbon they catch. Finding better options is laborious and expensive. Each new solvent can take months to create and longer to test. Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found a new way. They created and validated a computational model that predicts how easily a solvent will flow and how much carbon it will capture.