Cutting-edge technology which captures polluting carbon dioxide and stores it permanently inside rocks, has been developed at a new research centre at Nottingham University.

　　The new Centre will enable the UK to meet its targets for the reduction of carbon emissions and help play its part in global efforts to tackle climate change.

　　New technologies

　　Opening in October 2007, the Centre for Innovation in Carbon Capture and Storage (CICCS) will develop new technologies to trap and store greenhouse gases permanently and safely so they are not released into the atmosphere. Not only that, there are commercial prospects for the end product, like road-building materials and brick construction. CICCS will play a vital role in the fight against climate change and Dr Mercedes Maroto-Valer, Director of the Centre and Reader in Energy at the University, says that the new technologies "will enable the UK to meet its targets for the reduction of C0? emissions and thus help to play its part in global efforts to tackle climate change".

　　Five-year funding package

　　The Centre has just been awarded a five-year funding package by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council which will enable it in the Council's words to become "a world leader in the development of novel processes for carbon capture and storage and establish partnerships with major international industries".

　　It is a unique project which will bring together engineers, mathematicians, bioscientists, geographers, geologists and end-users. It will also promote "inter-disciplinary activity to bring ground-breaking ideas from basic science and develop them into new products, processes and services".

　　Storing C0? effectively

　　One of the new technologies uses a natural process in conjunction with silicate-based rocks, such as serpentine. This can be found in the right places and in large enough quantities to store all the C0? produced by the combustion of the entire world's known fossil fuel reserves.

　　The C0? extracted from burning coal, for example, will be put into a reactor with the rocks and after a chemical reaction the serpentine binds the C0? to itself, locking it in permanently. Once the process is fully developed the locking-in will only take minutes.

　　Nottingham University's new Centre has just been awarded a five-year funding package by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

　　Many commercial uses

　　But not only can the C0? be extracted and stored, the end product itself can be used commercially, for example for aggregates for road-building or shaped into bricks for construction. Fossil fuel power plants, for instance, could utilise the new process by adding one of these new reactors to their emissions treatment system, so that the C0? could be turned into a useful building material.

　　CICCS's ultimate goal is to sign collaborative agreements with power and construction companies to move forward with the commercialisation of the technology.

　　Help with UK's C0? reduction target

　　The Centre says that the processes they develop will also be attractive to oil producers, chemical manufacturers and other energy-intensive industries "that have a role to play in helping the UK to meet its 2050 C0? target of 60 per cent reduction below 1990 levels".(Source: British Consulate-General in Chongqing)