KSEF R&D Excellence: A Novel Concept of Converting Carbon dioxide Gas into Useful Products

Increasing fossil fuel use in the corning decades will result in significant increases in carbon dioxide (C02) emissions, with the potential for resulting changes in the global climate. USDOE is sponsoring various projects related to the sequestration of C02 and other novel approaches to absorb C02 in chemicals or solids. Sequestration of C02 in the ocean or in deep coal mines appears to be attractive routes. However, both the techniques have some serious drawbacks that could include re-release of C02 into the atmosphere. This proposal offers a novel approach of converting C02 into a useful byproduct by combusting Mg metal in the C02 atmosphere. The by-products of the process will be magnesium oxide (MgO) and carbon (C). The MgO can be recycled to generate Mg metal and carbon, depending on the particle size and purity, can be used in various applications. The project consists of three tasks. In task one, equipement will be set-up and in the second task a detailed experimental evaluation of the concept with respect to various criteria will be conducted. In task three a preliminary techno-economic study of the developed process will be conducted and a flow sheet of the process will be created.