Combating Climate Change by Drinking Beer
While it won’t tackle global carbon emissions quite yet, new technology from CSIRO, called Airthena, captures carbon dioxide directly from the air using tiny sponges known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and can be scaled up for commercial production, according to a statement from the company.
According to the project lead Aaron Thorton, this solution has a number of potential applications across a wide range of industries.
“As it requires just air and electricity to work, Airthena offers a cost-effective, efficient, and environmentally-friendly option to recycle CO2 for use on-site, on-demand,” Thorton said. “It also provides a more reliable source of CO2 for use in small-scale applications ranging from beverage carbonation to controlling pH in swimming pools and industrial cleaning.”
Airthena only needs approximately two kilowatt-hours of electricity per kilogram of carbon dioxide and is capable of capturing two tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per year, making it suitable for small-scale applications, such as craft breweries, right now.
“We are now exploring options for taking Airthena to market, which include reducing the cost of the unit for small scale applications and having it tested to ensure it meets food quality standards or working with the food production industry to scale up the technology for larger applications,” Thornton said.
Airthena could also be valuable for the chemical industry, which use carbon dioxide as a feedstock for making other compounds and materials, such as methanol and methane.
