Capturing Carbon Dioxide From Industry Using Smart Chemistry
18th January 2010
Oxford University Innovation is working with University of Oxford chemists who have developed a new process for capturing and storing carbon dioxide. Professor Dermot O’Hare and Dr Andrew Ashley have developed the process, which operates under mild conditions and converts carbon dioxide (CO2) to methanol - a useful industrial chemical and fuel.
Oxford University Innovation is working with University of Oxford chemists who have developed a new process for capturing carbon dioxide and storing it safely. Professor Dermot O’Hare and Dr Andrew Ashley have developed the process, which operates under mild conditions and converts carbon dioxide (CO2) to methanol – a useful industrial chemical and fuel.
Capturing Carbon Dioxide
Capturing carbon dioxide and efficiently store it in an environmentally friendly manner is highly desirable. The work has been published in premier chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie.
Isis has patented the technology and is working with the inventors to put in place a strategy for commercial development.
Nearly a third of the world’s energy consumption and 36 per cent of CO2 emissions are attributable to manufacturing industries1. Effective carbon capture technologies are an important part of any overall strategy for reducing the environmental impact of industry.
“The Oxford technique offers a cheaper and more robust process for removing waste CO2 before it enters the atmosphere,” said Professor O’Hare of Oxford’s Chemistry Research Laboratory, the lead scientist on the project. “We expect this to be attractive to industry because of a number of key aspects.
“It works at low temperatures and pressures, easily achievable in most industrial environments without added equipment and costs.
“It doesn’t require expensive and toxic transition metal catalysts, but uses what’s known as a ‘frustrated Lewis acid base pair’ which is commonly available and converts the CO2 to methanol without producing undesirable side-products such as carbon monoxide or methane.
“Current technology is not selective for methanol and therefore not carbon efficient. Side products of other carbon capture technologies such as carbon monoxide and methane can also be just as undesirable as CO2.”
O’Hare also explained that the reaction is not poisoned by carbon monoxide, which is often a problematic gas present in industrial output as it is created during incomplete combustion.
Methanol, the product of the Oxford carbon capture process, is widely used as a solvent and also as a fuel. The current technique for making methanol also relies on using fossil fuels; therefore as well as removing CO2 from the atmosphere, the Oxford process also creates a useful by-product.
The chemistry team who developed the technology also included Dr Amber Thompson.
O’Hare’s group are currently working on further developments to the technology to make the process suitable for industry. Oxford University Innovation welcomes contact from industrial partners with experience in commercialisation of catalytic processes.
A. E. Ashley, A.L. Thompson, D.M.O Hare, ‘Non-Metal-Mediated Homogeneous Hydrogenation of CO2 to CH3OH’ Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009, 48, 1 – 6
Reference(s)
1. International Energy Agency 2007, Tracking Industrial Energy Efficiency and CO2 Emissions. http://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/tracking2007SUM.pdf
