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Capturing CO2 emissions from the oceans could be easier than from air, experts say

Mihai - Cristian Ioniță

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered that it could be easier to extract carbon dioxide from our seas and oceans than it is to do so from the air. This is because the ocean absorbs more of the greenhouse gas than the atmosphere does.

According to MIT News, the oceans capture around 30-40% of the CO2 that we release, and the recent development of carbon extraction solutions from the seas shows that there is interest in removing it from these environments.

Just as air carbon capture solutions, they are fairly expensive to implement and so are not installed in large-scale projects.

However, a team from the MIT says that it was able to create an inexpensive and efficient system that can remove carbon emissions from seawater.

The researchers' device uses membrane-free electrochemical cells and besides removing carbon emissions from the ocean, it also reverses the acidification of the oceans, at least locally.

This is important, as the acidification of our seawater can create problems for the ecosystems and it affects fish and corals, among other beings.

MIT professor T. Alan Hatton says that "you can certainly consider using the captured CO2 as a feedstock for chemicals or materials production, but you’re not going to be able to use all of it as a feedstock."

Furthermore, scientists say that such systems can be installed on ships that can purify the water as they travel and so they can compensate for some of their own emissions.

Hatton also explains that these systems can work more efficiently than air-based carbon capture solutions, as the carbon concentration in the oceans is 100 times greater than that in the air.

Mihai - Cristian Ioniță

Absolvent de jurnalism, Cristian este pasionat de scris și tot ce înseamnă tehnologie. În prezent este redactor pentru Green Start-up și studiază ultimele trenduri în materie de energie verde.