Artificial trees of the future

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Climate change is real and is a threat to all. One of the ways to counter that is by reducing our emission of carbon dioxide. There are many ways to do so, one of them is a procedure by Klaus Lackner and his Research partner Allen Wright where carbon dioxide can be absorbed from thin air and then exude CO2 in a humid environment while absorbing moisture. [1]

This is done by artificial trees, they don’t exactly look like natural trees but function the same way and as Lackner said: “Our trees are specialists for carbon dioxide collection, and they’re about 1,000 times faster [than natural trees]” [7]. Lackner who is the director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions at Arizona State University for the past two decades has been working on reducing carbon emissions in the atmosphere [2].

His procedure includes a white resin which is an anionic exchange resin, absorbs CO2 when it is dry and releases it again when exposed to moisture. When it comes to contact with dry air, the resin will dry again. After drying it is ready for another absorption cycle [4]. The procedure makes it a passive, relatively low-cost and scalable solution that is commercially viable. If deployed on a large scale, this technology could lead to significant reductions in the levels of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere which would help combat global warming [3].

According to Lackner. a single tree with artificial leaves would be roughly the same size and production cost of a car. More importantly, it would be able to collect about 900 kg (2000 lbs., or one Ton) of CO2 from the air in a single day which is the same as the greenhouse gases produced by 36 motor vehicles in a day. Ten million of these artificial trees, he estimates, would absorb up 12 percent of the CO2 that humans add to the atmosphere each year. [7]

Since CO2 is of high utility it can either be stored (compressing it and pumping it underground) or used in making liquid fuels such as methanol or diesel for transport vehicles [6], help in generating electricity, using it to obtain hard-to-get oil from old oil (enhanced oil recovery) [7], etc.

The “branch” design is thin which helps to capture CO2 efficiently. [7]

           References

  1. Gertner, J. (2015, April 3). Klaus Lackner is pulling CO2 out of thin air. FastCompany. Retrieved November 3, 2019, from https://www.fastcompany.com/3044272/clearing-the-air
  2. Schiffman, R. (2016, May 23). Why CO2 ‘Air Capture’ could be key to slowing global warming. YaleEnviroment360. Retrieved November 3, 2019, from https://e360.yale.edu/features/pulling_co2_from_atmosphere_climate_change_lackner
  3. Derra, S. (2019, April 29). Lackner’s carbon-capture technology moves to commercialization. ASUNow. Retrieved November 3, 2019, from https://asunow.asu.edu/20190429-solutions-lackner-carbon-capture-technology-moves-commercialization
  4. Lackner, Wright, and Wang. Carbon Capture: Air Capture. Retrieved November 3, 2019, from https://web.archive.org/web/20121220210058/http://energy.columbia.edu/?id=research_carbon_capture
  5. Cantieri, J. Artificial trees could offset carbon dioxide emissions. ClimateChange.medill.northwestern.edu.© Northwestern University. Retrieved November 3, 2019, from http://climatechange.medill.northwestern.edu/2016/11/29/artificial-trees-might-be-needed-to-offset-carbon-dioxide-emissions/
  6. Vince, G. Sucking CO2 from the skies with artificial trees. BBC Future. Retrieved November 3, 2019, from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20121004-fake-trees-to-clean-the-skies
  7. Williams, M. Combatting Climate Change with Artificial trees. Herox. Retrieved November 3, 2019, from https://www.herox.com/blog/249-combatting-climate-change-with-artificial-trees
  8. Courtesy of Klaus Lackner. Retrieved November 3, 2019, from http://climatechange.medill.northwestern.edu/2015/02/10/artificial-trees-cap-your-co2-and-spew-it-too/

One thought on “Artificial trees of the future

  1. Egor Fiodarau says:

    You are a prodigy when it comes to research, aren’t you? A solidly built article with fine formatting and sources. It was a great pleasure to read if completely honest. I also really dig the concise style.

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