Removing Carbon Dioxide at Room Temperature with Nanomaterials (IMAGE)

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Removing Carbon Dioxide at Room Temperature with Nanomaterials

Caption

Illustration of a novel room-temperature process to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) by converting the molecule into carbon monoxide (CO). Instead of using heat, the nanoscale method relies on the energy from surface plasmons (violet hue) that are excited when a beam of electrons (vertical beam) strikes aluminum nanoparticles resting on graphite, a crystalline form of carbon. In the presence of the graphite, aided by the energy derived from the plasmons, carbon dioxide molecules (black dot bonded to two red dots) are converted to carbon monoxide (black dot bonded to one red dot. The hole under the violet sphere represents the graphite etched away during the chemical reaction CO2 + C = 2CO.

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NIST

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