Are sea urchins the key to solving global warming?

The humble sea urchin may yet hold the key against global warming - by capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to researchers in the United Kingdom.

 

Experts at Newcastle University discovered that carbon dioxide can be converted into harmless calcium carbonate in the presence of a nickel catalyst that is naturally found inside sea urchins' bodies, according to ScienceDaily.

 

"I was looking at how organisms absorb carbon dioxide into their skeletons and in particular the sea urchin which converts the carbon dioxide to calcium carbonate. When we analyzed the surface of the urchin larvae we found a high concentration of nickel on their exoskeleton. Taking nickel nanoparticles which have a large surface area, we added them to our carbonic acid test and the result was the complete removal of carbon dioxide," said Dr. Lidija Šiller, a physicist and Reader in Nanoscale Technology at Newcastle University.

 

She said the the discovery was made by chance. The discovery has since been published in the academic journal Catalysis Science & Technology.

 

Also, ScienceDaily said the discovery has the potential to revolutionize the way we capture and store carbon, enabling us to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

 

Each year, humans emit 33.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, around 45 percent of which remains in the atmosphere.

 

A gas-driven car can produce a ton of carbon dioxide every 4,000 miles.

 

Calcium carbonate, or chalk, makes up around 4 percent of Earth's crust and acts as a carbon reservoir, estimated to be equivalent to 1.5 million billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.

 

It is the main component of shells of marine organisms, snails, pearls, and eggshells, and is a completely stable mineral.

 

It can be used to make cement and other materials and also in hospitals to make plaster casts.

Current technologies  

Presently, pilot studies for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) systems propose the removal of carbon dioxide by pumping it into holes deep underground.

 

But this process is costly and difficult, and carries a long-term risk of the gas leaking back out.

 

An alternative is to convert the carbon dioxide into calcium or magnesium carbonate by using an enzyme called carbonic anhydrase.

 

But Gaurav Bhaduri, lead author on the paper and a PhD student in the University's School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, said the enzyme is inactive in acid conditions.

 

He also said that since one of the products of the reaction is carbonic acid, this means the enzyme is only effective for a very short time —and the process may be very expensive.

Benefits of nickel catalyst  

But Bhaduri said the beauty of a nickel catalyst is that it carries on working regardless of the pH.

 

Also, its magnetic properties allow it to be recaptured and reused time and time again.

 

"It's also very cheap -- 1,000 times cheaper than the enzyme. And the by-product -- the carbonate -- is useful and not damaging to the environment," he said.

 

"What our discovery offers is a real opportunity for industries such as power stations and chemical processing plants to capture all their waste CO2 before it ever reaches the atmosphere and store it as a safe, stable and useful product," he added.

 

Developed process

 

The Newcastle team's process involves passing the waste gas directly from the chimney top, through a water column rich in nickel nano-particles and recovering the solid calcium carbonate from the bottom.

 

"The capture and removal of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere is one of the most pressing dilemmas of our time. Our process would not work in every situation -- it couldn't be fitted to the back of a car, for example -- but it is an effective, cheap solution that could be available world-wide to some of our most polluting industries and have a significant impact on the reduction of atmospheric CO2," Siller said.

 

So far, the team had patented the process and is now looking for an investor to take it forward. — TJD, GMA News