The continuous increase of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere is a pressing problem for our society. The urgent need for strategies to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations has triggered international action by governments. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies have been seen as a key solution to reverse the upward trend of CO2 in the atmosphere, as they can mitigate, or at least delay, the alarming consequences of the greenhouse effect.
Still today, the most common solution to reduce post-combustion carbon dioxide is chemisorption, a mixture separation process that has many limitations due to its low selectivity to identify and quantify CO2, its corrosive effect and the high energy consumption that this technique requires for its operation and maintenance. Although organic polymer membrane systems have been trying to find their place in the industry for years, it is the development of mixed membranes that is really attracting the interest of the environmental industry.
The Funimat group of the Institute of Molecular Science (ICMol), located at the University of Valencia Science Park (PCUV), specializes in the design of functional inorganic materials and has developed a family of MOF (metal-organic frameworks) with optimal properties for CO2 capture. With the PORECAPTURE project, the team plans to incorporate these MOFs - porous, crystalline and very stable metal-organic frameworks - into mixed-matrix membranes to provide them with high capacity for CO2 scavenging in a wide range of conditions and largely overcome the problems and limitations of existing technologies. "We have a very attractive technology for CO2 removal from mixed and wet gases, as it is relatively simple, can be easily replaced and requires minimal investment and costs," explains Carlos Martí-Gastaldo, head of the Funimat group at ICMol and leader of the project.
"We have a very attractive technology for CO2 removal from mixed and wet gases, as it is relatively simple, can be easily replaced and requires minimal investment and costs," explains Carlos Martí-Gastaldo, head of the Funimat group at ICMol and leader of the project
From laboratory to industry
PORECAPTURE is the result of the Chem-fs-MOF project (Chemical Engineering of Functional Stable Metal-Organic Frameworks: Porous crystals and Thin-film Devices), launched in 2017 by Martí-Gastaldo. That project was funded with the first of three grants that the European Research Council (ERC) has already awarded to this chemist from the Universitat de València, a Starting Grant awarded at the end of 2016 for the development of new advanced porous materials and their implementation in applications of environmental interest.
Martí-Gastaldo received a few months ago a new grant in the form of a Consolidator Grant for another project and has now received the Proof of Concept from the same European body, a complementary allocation that he will have to devote to the feasibility verification phase of PORECAPTURE for its subsequent commercialization. "We intend to implement the technology in collaboration with companies interested in this type of problem; generate prototypes so that our solution can be validated in the plant," says the scientist.
PORECAPTURE is established as a technology closely linked to the company PMA (Porous Materials in Action), a spin-off of the University of Valencia to which the academic institution has licensed the patent for the exploitation of these materials in order to accelerate their industrial development.
"We intend to implement the technology in collaboration with companies interested in this type of problem; generate prototypes so that our solution can be validated in the plant," says Carlos Martí-Gastaldo, head of the Funimat group at ICMol and leader of the project