Tag: zeolites

New material could capture carbon more efficiently (Day 287)

A cleaner fossil-fuelled future is something that I, along with many of my colleagues, aspire to achieve during my lifetime. Carbon capture, storage and use, and its potential to mitigate climate change figures strongly on my research agenda.

Nasser Khazeni Photo Credit | New Mexico State University
Nasser Khazeni
Photo Credit | New Mexico State University

So I was particularly pleased to learn that researchers from New Mexico State University (NMSU), US, have developed a new material that could capture carbon dioxide more efficiently and with greater capacity than any technology currently in place.

Now you may think this a bold claim, but the research focuses on adsorption as opposed to absorption – which is the most common method used for capturing carbon dioxide.

Nasser Khazeni, a chemical and materials engineering PhD student from NMSU, led and developed the research into this new technology, with specific focus on post-combustion separation of carbon dioxide.

Continue reading New material could capture carbon more efficiently (Day 287)

Supercomputing our energy (Day 261)

LaptopsHigh specification personal computers mean that most of us can perform our jobs sat at home, work or even on the road.

But processing and modelling large amounts of data to help our understanding of complex and mammoth tasks like the formation of the universe, predicting weather patterns, or large and complex engineering problems require more than the average desktop computer.

Hence, the growth of supercomputers in recent times. But they don’t come cheap.

Later this year the UK’s Met Office £97 million (US$ 146 million) supercomputer will come online.

Eventually, its processing power will be 16 petaflops – meaning it can perform 16 quadrillion calculations every second.

The “Cray XC40” machine will have 480,000 central processing units or CPUs, which is 12 times as many as the current Met Office supercomputer, made by IBM.

At 140 tonnes, it will also be three times heavier – more a ‘floortop’ than a desktop.

Continue reading Supercomputing our energy (Day 261)