Muhaimin Iqbal
Author

CO2? Just Can It!

Advanced Renewable

Tue , 05 Mar 2024 17:24 WIB

Inspiration for an innovation can come from anything and whenever it appears, this innovation is an example. What happens when we open a can of fizzy drink? There is a sensation of sound and feels that I had not yet found the right words to describe in English except fizzy. In Javanese the sound that we hear from inside the fizzy drink is called 'krinyis-krinyis', and when we drink the sensation in the mouth it feels 'sengkring-sengkring'.

The sound and taste sensation of this canned drink is our source of the inspiration, it comes from the same CO2 as the CO2 that is horrendous in the world with global warming, climate change, extreme weather, etc. In fact, the source of CO2 in these canned drinks is also from industrial smokestacks or power plants, which is purified in such a way that it becomes food grade and sold to the beverage canning industry, etc.

If this source of emissions can be feedstocks for the soft drink industry, why not for various other industries? All we need is to can all the exhaust gas from industry, power plants and later also motor vehicles. So we designed a can for the CO2 capture as in the picture below.

This is even better than the CO2 in our drink cans. When a drink can is opened, the sound and taste sensation mentioned above is from CO2 which will escape into the earth's atmosphere - meaning in the beverage industry, the CO2 ends up being released back into the air.

In this CO2 can, which I will henceforth call CO2Can, the CO2 that is captured is not released back into the atmosphere, it remains on earth even if the lid of the can is opened. How could that be? Inside this CO2Can we fill it with media to bind the CO2 so it doesn't fly anymore.

The type of media depends on the intended use of the captured CO2. Using adsorbent if CO2 will be used as Regenerative Energy, use reactant if CO2 will be used as slow release fertilizer, use solvent if it is for beverage industry mentioned above, and use an electrolyte if the CO2 will be used for the advanced materials industry such as Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs), etc.

So that this innovation is truly effective in reducing CO2 emissions, CO2Can is present in a complete ecosystem starting from the supply of carbon capture media, to the utilization of captured CO2. For the Regenerative Energy industry, for example, CO2 from CO2Can can directly become feedstock for the OCCYRE reactor (https://lnkd.in/ga6KcnzT) to produce CO gas, which is the building block for all subsequent forms of Regenerative Energy.

After becoming CO gas, it can be fed to the XH2 reactor for hydrogen production (https://lnkd.in/gnwS-Nrt), or fed to the GTX reactor to become various hydrocarbon fuels that we use today (https://lnkd .in/gXhsCdVq ). So wherever you find CO2, just can it!