Your empty cuppa could capture carbon

Some of the amine groups hang out solo, while others link with each other to help create the porosity within the solid.

The researchers tested this process with a few plastic objects, including Styrofoam, food packaging, a fork, a CD case, and a Lego base plate (which has another chemical component). They found that the material they produced performed well in the carbon-capture cycle, both at the extremely high CO2 concentration of a smokestack and the lower concentration of ambient air.

Fine tuning

The researchers also found that they could control the material’s properties along the way. They could tune the amine content up or down, as well as adjusting the proportion that made porosity-building linkages instead of CO2-grabbers.

Since the amine-containing starting material they used was ultimately fossil-fuel derived, they also tested turning a couple other kinds of synthetic materials into amines instead. Past research has shown a few...

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