A new study conducted at Queen’s University Belfast revealed a massive scientific breakthrough – the development of a porous liquid which could dissolve significant amounts of gases.
Advertisement
‘The work by James and colleagues is important because it shows for the first time that a liquid can be made permanently porous, ‘ says Michael Mastalerz, professor of organic chemistry at Heidelberg University, Ruperto Carola in Germany.
If this porous liquid can absorb huge quantities of CO2, could it be part of the solution to our global warming problem? Useful as both catalysts and molecular separators, porous solids have seen their way into a variety of industrial applications, including plastics and petrol manufacturing.
Porous materials, as their name would suggest, are materials with holes. “However, until recently, these porous materials have been solids”, Professor Stuart James from Queen’s School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, said in a news release.
This involves trapping carbon dioxide (for example from a fossil fuel power plant) and storing it in the liquid to stop it entering the atmosphere. The results of their research are published today in the journal Nature. They said that materials with permanent porosity could possibly be used in carbon capture, but conventional liquids do not have this property.
It’s true, scientists are very excited about this new development.
Researchers at the Northern Ireland university pieced together molecules to form a liquid unable to entirely fill up space.
The scientists have developed a new liquid that is “porous”-it’s able to absorb a huge amount of gas into the “pores” found throughout the liquid”.
The research was led by Queen’s University Belfast, and also involved scientists from the University of Liverpool, the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Argentina, the Universität Kiel, Germany, and the Université Blaise Pascal, France. He added: “These first experiments are what is needed to understand this new type of material, and the results point to interesting long-term applications which rely on dissolution of gases”. The researchers’ new liquid can dissolve large amounts of gas, as they are absorbed by the “holes” in the liquid.
Advertisement
“A few more years’ research will be needed, but if we can find applications for these porous liquids they could result in new or improved chemical processes”. It was funded by the Engineering Physical Science Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust.
