New Trap for Greenhouse Gases May Help Curtail Climate Change

There may just be a way to trap greenhouse gases more effectively than normal. Scientists have found new materials that could be useful for absorbing these gases.

In this latest study, researchers are looking at vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNTs) to trap and store two greenhouse gases in particular, including carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). The gas absorption in VACNTs can be influenced by adjusting the morphological parameters of the carbon nanotube thickness, the distance between nanotubes and their height.

"These parameters are fundamental for 'tuning' the hierarchical pore structure of the VACNTs," said Mahshid Rahimi and Deepu Babu, two of the lead authors of the new study, in a news release. "This hierarchy effect is a crucial factor for getting high-adsorption capacities as well as mass transport into the nanostructure. Surprisingly, from theory and by experiment, we found that the distance between nanotubes plays a much larger role in gas adsorption than the tube diameter does."

The researchers chose VACNTs because they are created via a chemical vapor deposition process, which makes it possible to achieve a dense growth and regular tight packing of carbon nanotubes. VACNTs are ideal model structures, in theory.

So what did they find? The gas adsorption provided by VACNTs is superior to typical adsorption materials, such as porous carbon, zeolites and metal organic frameworks within the mid-pressure regime.

The new findings could be huge for removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. New materials could offer new solutions for reducing the amount of gases in the air, and also curbing the tide of climate change.

The findings are published in the Journal of Chemical Physics.

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