The festival of lights is over and all our cities are left with?a toxic haze leading to breathing issues and suffocation,?thanks to firecracker smoke and choking stubble burning.
Reuters
While the air quality in cities like New Delhi, Ghaziabad drops to inhabitable levels, with citizens breathing deadly air, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology reveal a way to absorb harmful carbon dioxide from air and make the air quality better while fighting climate change.?
They've created a device that can absorb carbon dioxide from thin air. The device is basically a large-sized battery with electrodes on top that absorb harmful CO2 gas when it flies through these electrodes.?
Sahag Voskian & T Alan Halton
The electrodes, however, are coated with a compound called polyanthraquinone. This compound is also known to naturally attract CO2. As the battery is charging up it causes a chemical reaction with the electrodes, thus causing CO2 to get absorbed and thus cleansing the air.
Sahag Voskian, a post doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said: "The greatest advantage of this technology over most other carbon capture or carbon-absorbing technologies is the binary nature of the adsorbent's affinity to carbon dioxide. This binary affinity allows capture of carbon dioxide from any concentration, including 400 parts per million, and allows its release into any carrier stream, including 100 percent CO2."
He further added: "All of this is at ambient conditions - there's no need for thermal, pressure, or chemical input. It's just these very thin sheets, with both surfaces active, that can be stacked in a box and connected to a source of electricity."
HattonGroup.MIT.EDU
The researchers wish to use this technology to cleanse harmful CO2 to be re-utilised, like in case of making of soda drinks where a ton of fossil fuel is burned to make the 'fizz' we all love so much.
Alan Hatton, the Ralph Landau Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, added: "In my laboratories, we have been striving to develop new technologies to tackle a range of environmental issues that avoid the need for thermal energy sources, changes in system pressure, or addition of chemicals to complete the separation and release cycles.
"This carbon dioxide capture technology is a clear demonstration of the power of electrochemical approaches that require only small swings in voltage to drive the separations."