Turning CO2 into baking soda

Politics and Social Issues
1

It sounds like alchemy, right? But, allegedly, a coal plant in India has been capturing CO2 and changing it into baking soda for a couple of years now.

I wonder whether CO2 could be, cost effectively, captured from the atmosphere and turned into baking soda. It might be a nice way to combat our worsening climate change. Though I am not sure what we would do with all that baking soda.

2

Tru dad

At first glance it sounded half baked, but a quick google search reveals all sorts of information.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603302/a-coal-fired-power-plant-in-india-is-turning-carbon-dioxide-into-baking-soda/

In the southern Indian city of Tuticorin, locals are unlikely to suffer from a poorly risen cake. That’s because a coal-fired thermal power station in the area captures carbon dioxide and turns it into baking soda.

Carbon capture schemes are nothing new. Typically, they use a solvent, such as amine, to catch carbon dioxide and prevent it from escaping into the atmosphere. From there, the CO2 can either be stored away or used.

But the Guardian reports that a system installed in the Tuticorin plant uses a new proprietary solvent developed by the company Carbon Clean Solutions. The solvent is reportedly just slightly more efficient than those used conventionally, requiring a little less energy and smaller apparatus to run. The collected CO2 is used to create baking soda, and it claims that as much as 66,000 tons of the gas could be captured at the plant each year.

Its operators say that the marginal gain in efficiency is just enough to make it feasible to run the plant without a subsidy. In fact, it’s claimed to be the first example of an unsubsidized industrial plant capturing CO2for use. …

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a24631/india-co2-baking-soda/


Although most reports are from January 2017 - so what’s been happening since then?

“proprietary” concerns me though. Don’t most perpetual motion machines, and cold fusion, heck even that miracle of the Theranos all in one blood test required that mysterious magical proprietary widget. Aren’t there are patents available, or unthinkable these days there used to be, in them olden-times, a thing called, For the good of mankind.

 

3

Here’s something: https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2018/11/15/wvu-led-research-team-to-study-turning-carbon-dioxide-from-power-plants-into-valuable-products

4

And this:

http://www.carboncapturejournal.com/news/west-virginia-university-to-capture-co2-sell-baking-soda/4087.aspx?Category=capture

5

And here’s one that suggests that baking soda can be used to make the carbon dioxide capture step be done more efficiently:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181212134413.htm

SO, why not make the baking soda, then use some of it to make the carbon capture , then make more baking soda? etc, etc…

 

 

But what we really need, seems to me, is capturing co2 from the atmosphere. But, then, I know nothing about what that would entail or what the unwanted effects might be if it is even possible.