Preface to Special Issue - CO2 Capture, Sequestration, Conversion and Utilization

Received: February 26, 2014
Revised: February 26, 2014
Accepted: February 26, 2014
Download Citation: RIS|BibTeX|https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.2014.14.0001  

Cite this article:
Li, Y. and Li, F. (2014). Preface to Special Issue - CO2 Capture, Sequestration, Conversion and Utilization. Aerosol Air Qual. Res. 14: 451-452. https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.2014.14.0001

ABSTRACT

This special issue in Aerosol and Air Quality Research features selected papers presented at the Symposium on CO₂ Capture, Sequestration, Conversion and Utilization, during the 245^th American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting & Exposition, which was held in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, from April 7 to 11, 2013. The symposium was organized by Prof. Ying Li at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Prof. Fanxing Li at North Carolina State University. It was the largest symposium among the twenty symposia within the Division of Energy and Fuels at the 245^th ACS National Meeting & Exposition. A total of 80 invited and contributed talks were presented at the symposium. Topics included fundamentals in CO₂ activation and advanced processes and materials for CO₂ capture, sequestration, conversion, and utilization.

Anthropogenic CO₂ emission from fossil energy conversion is one of the major contributors to global climate change. With projected increase in global energy consumption, advanced carbon capture, sequestration, and utilization approaches need to be developed. As a first step for CO₂ mitigation, carbon capture can potentially be achieved, in a cost-effective manner, through new technologies that reduce the energy consumptions for separating diluted CO₂ from conventional power plant flue gas. Alternatively, smart combustion or gasification processes such as oxy-fuel or chemical-looping are capable of producing concentrated CO₂ for easy capture. Successful development and deployment of these aforementioned technologies require breakthroughs in advanced materials as well as innovative reactor concepts and process schemes. Sequestration of captured CO₂ into geological formations such as saline aquifers is the next important step to ensure long term storage of CO₂. Besides sequestration, a number of emerging ideas have shown promise to recycle and utilize CO₂ as a carbon source for clean energy carriers or chemicals, mainly through catalytic processes. While CO₂ is thermodynamically stable, renewable energy sources like solar can accomplish the challenging task of CO₂ conversion and utilization. For example, it has been demonstrated that nanostructured photocatalysts are capable of converting CO₂ and water into C1 fuels like CO, methane or methanol under solar radiation. Extensive research efforts are underway to enhance the CO₂ conversion efficiency using these novel photocatalytic processes.

Keywords: CO2; Special issue