‘Artificial Trees’ Will Absorb Carbon Dioxide 1,000 Times More Effective Than A Regular Tree

Question: How are artificial trees used to reduce carbon dioxide?
Answer: Columbia University has developed a prototype for an artificial tree that is 1,000 times more effective at absorbing CO2 than a regular tree.

The leaves look like sheets of papery plastic and are coated in a resin that contains sodium carbonate, which pulls carbon dioxide out of the air and stores it as a bicarbonate (baking soda) on the leaf. To remove the carbon dioxide, the leaves are rinsed in water vapor and can dry naturally in the wind, soaking up more carbon dioxide.
Columbia University Earth Institute scientists Klaus Lackner and Allen Wright who are behind this idea calculate that the artificial tree can remove one tonne of carbon dioxide a day.

Ten million of these trees could remove 3.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – equivalent to about 10% of our global annual carbon dioxide emissions.

See also: Amazing Phenomenon Of Singing Plants

If the trees were mass produced they would each initially cost around $20,000 (then falling as production takes over), just below the price of the average family car in the United States. The carbon dioxide from the process can be cooled and stored; however, many scientists are concerned that even if we did remove all our carbon dioxide, there isn’t enough space to store it securely in saline aquifers or oil wells. But geologists are coming up with alternatives.

For example, peridotite, which is a mixture of serpentine and olivine rock, is a great sucker of carbon dioxide, sealing the absorbed gas as stable magnesium carbonate mineral. Another option could be the basalt rock cliffs, which contain holes – solidified gas bubbles from the basalt’s formation from volcanic lava flows millions of years ago. Pumping carbon dioxide into these ancient bubbles causes it to react to form stable limestone – calcium carbonate.

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Source:

BBC

Columbia University