What is carbon capture? And how does it work?

While carbon capture is regularly discussed in the media, no one really ever explains what it is.

Below is a quick thread discussing the technology behind traditional carbon capture 👇

Carbon capture is broadly the "capture" of CO2 emissions from a power plant or other type of industrial facility.

Technology is connected to the "tailpipes" of these facilities and is used to remove CO2 from the plant exhaust.
Once the CO2 is removed from the plant exhaust, it is typically pressurized and sent under ground for permanent storage.

This step is called "sequestration" and is why experts often talks about "carbon capture and sequestration" or "CCS".
So how do you "capture" the CO2 molecules from exhaust?

Currently, one of the most economic forms of carbon capture is called "amine-based" capture.

An "amine" is a special liquid chemical which selectively grabs on to CO2 molecules.
To get the amine to grab on to the CO2, the amine is put into the top of a large column, while the exhaust is put into the bottom of the column.

The exhaust bubbles up through the column, and the amine drips down.

The liquid amine and gas exhaust mix in the column.
The amine selectively "dissolves" the CO2 in the first column, while letting the rest of the air pass through.

The amine with dissolved CO2 is sent into a second column where it is heated.

In the second column, the CO2 pops out of the amine.

Now, we have separated the CO2.
These columns are often called "scrubbers" ...and if you ever drive by a plant, you might see these columns.

Below is a picture of an amine plant used for CO2 scrubbing.
Finally, once the CO2 is separated, it is compressed to extremely high pressure and prepared for sequestration.

The CO2 is injected into a well for permanent storage underground, usually a few hundred yards away.
As @tlancaster50 from my team notes, there are other ways of capturing CO2

What I've described is called "point source capture" because it captures CO2 from a single plant exhaust

With new advances in technology, CO2 can also be captured directly from the air we breathe
Thats the summary! Hope this was helpful.

Please ask questions in the comments, and I will continue to post more about carbon capture (economics, scalability, etc) in the near future.

More from Science

This is a thread on statistics in science: 1/7 (via @LogicofScience)

Basic Statistics Part 1: The Law of Large Numbers https://t.co/wUH8eAAIak

#Science #Statistics


Basic Statistics Part 2: Correlation vs. Causation

https://t.co/Azhyl8pDsX (2/7)

Basic Statistics Part 3: The Dangers of Large Data Sets: A Tale of P values, Error Rates, and Bonferroni Corrections

https://t.co/LetN6aEBRM (3/7)

Basic statistics part 4: understanding P values

https://t.co/K8MMMgTCOf (4/7)

Basic Statistics Part 5: Means vs Medians, Is the “Average”

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🌿𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓 : 𝑫𝒉𝒓𝒖𝒗𝒂 & 𝑽𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒏𝒖

Once upon a time there was a Raja named Uttānapāda born of Svayambhuva Manu,1st man on earth.He had 2 beautiful wives - Suniti & Suruchi & two sons were born of them Dhruva & Uttama respectively.
#talesofkrishna https://t.co/E85MTPkF9W


Now Suniti was the daughter of a tribal chief while Suruchi was the daughter of a rich king. Hence Suruchi was always favored the most by Raja while Suniti was ignored. But while Suniti was gentle & kind hearted by nature Suruchi was venomous inside.
#KrishnaLeela


The story is of a time when ideally the eldest son of the king becomes the heir to the throne. Hence the sinhasan of the Raja belonged to Dhruva.This is why Suruchi who was the 2nd wife nourished poison in her heart for Dhruva as she knew her son will never get the throne.


One day when Dhruva was just 5 years old he went on to sit on his father's lap. Suruchi, the jealous queen, got enraged and shoved him away from Raja as she never wanted Raja to shower Dhruva with his fatherly affection.


Dhruva protested questioning his step mother "why can't i sit on my own father's lap?" A furious Suruchi berated him saying "only God can allow him that privilege. Go ask him"