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Ammonia Encapsulated in Hydrogels for Carbon Sequestration

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Overview

While great strides have been made towards the development of new technologies that will eventually alleviate our dependence on carbon-based energy, our environment is currently suffering the ill effects of increased carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere. Carbon sequestration, the process of removing carbon from the atmosphere through biological, chemical or physical processes, is the solution to this crisis. Currently, carbon sequestration technology is expensive due to the high cost of materials and the short effective life of these materials.

Researchers at the University of Maryland have designed a biodegradable hydrogel that encapsulates aqueous ammonia, which, when dispersed over large agricultural land plots, reacts with the CO2 in the atmosphere and is then converted into ammonium bicarbonate, a common fertilizer. Unlike current CO2 capture plats utilizing monoethanolamine (MEA), the aqueous ammonia process has no degradation or equipment corrosion problems. Additionally, the comparable cost of the ammonia is about one sixth of MEA while the loading of the CO2 is 3 times that of MEA.

Applications:
· Large scale environmental CO2 removal
Advantages:
· Converts a problem of excess environmental CO2 to an advantage of agricultural fertilizer
· One sixth the cost of current CO2 removal chemicals
· 3 times the CO2 loading of current chemicals

Contact Info

UM Ventures
0134 Lee Building
7809 Regents Drive
College Park, MD 20742
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (301) 405-3947 | Fax: (301) 314-9502