Out of thin air: direct carbon capture is on the horizon

一家澳大利亚公司可能会在明年最早销售直接从空中吸收二氧化碳的模块，但要决定最高的出价者来决定该公司会发生什么情况₂once it’s been captured.

Melbourne-basedSouthern Green Gas（SGG）刚刚宣布与Swiss Re, a multinational reinsurance company, to deliver its modules to market.

SGG’s carbon-removal technology consists of small, solar-powered modules that capture one to two tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per year.

SGG董事总经理罗汉·吉莱斯皮（Rohan Gillespie）说：“我们设想捕获农场，涉及100,000至100万个模块，所有这些模块都聚集在一起。”

The modules use a substance called a metal-organic framework, or MOF, to remove CO₂。这些MOF由金属原子和有机分子的格子制成（化学意义上的有机物 - 主要由碳和氢组成）。它们可以像巨型分子海绵一样起作用，去除CO₂, water or other substances, depending on their design.

“There are many different types of MOFs,” says Gillespie.

“It’s a platform technology. It’s a crystalline nanomaterial, and its properties can be tailored to suit the application. The particular MOF we use has been finely tuned to absorb CO₂from the atmosphere, in preference to nitrogen and oxygen. And once they absorb CO₂, then we use heat to get it out in pure form. So it’s an absorption-desorption process.”

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一旦从MOF中除去了气态二氧化碳，就可以完成一些不同的事情。

吉莱斯皮说：“一种选择是压缩它并将其隔离，因此在地质地层中永久存储 - 所谓的碳捕获和储存。”这是一种伸展的技术回到几十年, but it still operates at a small scale.

“Another way is to actually embed the CO₂in a product such as a carbonate. There are people developing technology that adds CO₂with mineral salts and creates a carbonate, which they sell as a product.”

公司₂也可以变成甲烷（CH₄), also called natural gas, which can then be combusted again. Gillespie says this is commercially interesting, as methane is widely used as a fuel already.

“You can just use all the infrastructure, and potentially export it as green LNG (liquefied natural gas),” he says.

“当然，当消耗甲烷时，它会释放CO₂。But that is matched by the CO₂extracted. So it’s carbon neutral; it’s a closed loop.”

吉莱斯皮说，尽管此特定应用不是碳负的，但比燃烧的甲烷更可取。“瑞士人说，尽力而为 - 这是用可再生能源代替化石燃料的一个例子。”

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SGG is currently working on a demonstration project for its modules, and hopes to have a product to market by 2022. It’s currently working on ways to manufacture the modules at large scale, as well as tweaking aspects such as energy usage and cycle time.

“The technology is technically proven but not commercially proven,” says Gillespie.

“我们不确定在此阶段，这些市场中的哪一个将会发展 - 以及多快，多大。因此，现在重点是获得CO的成本₂capture down below $100 [per tonne]. We think lots of markets will open up at that price point.”