Sponges that soak up carbon dioxide could provide a new weapon in the battle against global warming. These materials hold promise as filters in power station flues and vehicle exhausts, capturing the gas before it can reach the atmosphere and affect the climate.
Researchers at the University of California synthesised a range of new sponge-like substances with pores just the right size to trap molecules of CO2. The most efficient of them can absorb 83 times its own volume of the gas.
Once the sponge is full, the gas could be stripped out for disposal in large, natural caverns deep underground or beneath the seabed. The sponge can be filled and emptied indefinitely, simply by varying the overhead pressure.
The hope is that the sponge will make carbon capture and storage more attractive and cheaper than at present.
Currently, only four modest schemes exist worldwide, and the only existing method for stripping out carbon dioxide from other flue gases is to first dissolve it in an amine-based solvent, then heat the solvent to release and capture it. But this process itself consumes huge amounts of heat.
Then theres the question "would this ever be implemented?" cause people tend to look to things that get along of media and political attention to solve problems, things that usually don't pan out or turn out make the problem worse. Like the focus on ethanol and other alternative fuels that tuned out to make global worming worse instead of looking to things like soler, nuclear or wind power as alternatives to coal powered power planet.
