The world’s first farm of mechanical CO2 absorbing trees will start operating in April
In a recent interview with Inverse, University of Arizona professor Klaus Luckner talked about how mechanical trees, he has developed, will capture CO2 from the air.
According to the professor, they are columns consisting of disks with a diameter of more than one and a half meters, covered with a special resin. The distance between the disks is about 5 cm. At the moment the air passes through this structure, the disks absorb atmospheric CO2. It takes approximately 20 minutes for the disks to fill with carbon dioxide, after which they are immersed in a container below, where water and steam move CO2 into a closed chamber.
Last July, Luckner received a $2.5 million grant from the US Department of Energy to work on his trapping devices. The scientist plans to create three farms capable of absorbing up to 1000 tons of CO2 per day. The first farm will start operating in April.
In his interview, Luckner recalled that the current CO2 capture technologies are very imperfect, and therefore cannot significantly reduce the effect of global warming. In contrast, “mechanical trees” will consume a minimum amount of energy.
However, according to the professor, the key problem is the preservation of the collected CO2, because if it “runs away” back into the atmosphere, then our grandchildren will have to “catch” it again.
Sources:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-carboncapture-idUSKCN1S52CG
https://www.inverse.com/innovation/mechanical-trees-co2-climate-change