Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is broadly recognised as having the potential to play a key role in meeting climate change targets, delivering low carbon heat and power, decarbonising industry and, more recently, its ability to facilitate the net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. However, despite this broad consensus and its technical maturity, CCS has not yet been deployed on a scale commensurate with the ambitions articulated a decade ago. Thus, in this paper we review the current state-of-the-art of CO2 capture, transport, utilisation and storage from a multi-scale perspective, moving from the global to molecular scales. In light of the COP21 commitments to limit warming to less than 2 °C, we extend the remit of this study to include the key negative emissions technologies (NETs) of bioenergy with CCS (BECCS), and direct air capture (DAC). Cognisant of the non-technical barriers to deploying CCS, we reflect on recent experience from the UK's CCS commercialisation programme and consider the commercial and political barriers to the large-scale deployment of CCS. In all areas, we focus on identifying and clearly articulating the key research challenges that could usefully be addressed in the coming decade.

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Carbon capture and storage (CCS): the way forward

Adsorption of VOCs onto engineered carbon materials: A review

Endowed with unparalleled high catalytic activity and selectivity, enzymes offer enormous potential as catalysts in practical applications. These applications, however, are seriously hampered by enzymes’ low thermal and chemical stabilities. One way to improve these stabilities is the enzyme immobilization. Among various tested methods of this process that make use of different enzyme-carrier interactions, immobilization by adsorption on solid carriers has appeared most common. According to these findings, in this review we present a comparative analysis of the literature reports on the recent trends in the immobilization of the enzymes by adsorption. This thorough study was prepared in order to provide a deeper understanding of the process. Both carriers, carrier modifiers and procedures developed for effective adsorption of the enzymes are discussed. The review may thus be helpful in choosing the right adsorption scheme for a given enzyme to achieve the improvement of its stability and activity for a specific application.

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Enzyme immobilization by adsorption: a review

Activated carbon is a porous material that has been in many important ages of the human history. Lignocellulosic precursors and biomass sources have become important materials to produce it because their use produces many benefits, mainly environmental. Nowadays, it is possible to find numerous research papers devoted to the synthesis characterization and applications of novel precursors to produce activated carbon. Hence, special attention must be given to the relationship among the selected precursor characteristics, the final microstructure and properties of carbon. The present work provides a summary of research works outlining the use of lignocellulosic–based precursors to obtain activated carbons. A brief description of the characterization techniques for both, the precursors and activated carbons, comprising: physicochemical, micro/nanostructural, surface chemistry, textural and adsorption capacity features is presented. Finally, the application of these materials in adsorption of heavy metals, dyes, volatile organic compounds, gas storage and electrochemical capacitors is also included.

Activated carbon from lignocellulosics precursors: a review of the synthesis methods, characterization techniques and applications.

Well-defined, large surface area nanostructures are promising functional materials but can be difficult to fabricate. Here the authors show how to prepare ultrahigh-surface-area hollow carbon nanospheres, via a controlled carbonization route, and assess their organic vapour adsorption and electrochemical performance.

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Facile synthesis of ultrahigh-surface-area hollow carbon nanospheres for enhanced adsorption and energy storage.

Ion Exchange‐Assisted Electrodialysis for Treatment of Dilute Copper‐Containing Wastes

A staged contacting device adapted from Craig's countercurrent extractor has been designed to allow back and forth stepwise displacement of the light liquid phase while the heavy liquid phase remains stationary. Thermal parametric pumping experiments were run in this staged apparatus, at total reflux, with water as the heavy, stationary phase, toluene as the light moving phase, and phenol as the solute distributed linearly between the two phases. The transient and steady regimes of this operation are investigated by introducing a matrix formalism and studying the properties of eigenvalues and eigenvectors. It is shown how this formalism can be extended to more complex situations involving nonideal separations and transfer of phases, several transfers per half-cycle, and partial reflux.

Stagewise Liquid-Liquid Extraction Parametric Pumping. Equilibrium Analysis and Experiments

In this paper we investigate displacement chromatography of amino acids on columns of strong anionic resins in the hydroxyl form. The displacer used here is carbon dioxide dissolved in water, but t...

Amino acids separations by displacement chromatography. Effects of homogeneous and heterogeneous equilibria on separation performances

Donnan partition parametric pumping. Concentration and dilution effects in ion exchange parametric pumping

A process which can be used for purification of a peptide is presented. This process is called ESIEX: Electrical Swing Ion Exchange. The principle of this process is based on a three steps cyclic mode, which avoids using pH buffers or generating wastes. The experimental set-up consists of an electrodialysis apparatus in which the cells are filled with anion exchange resins. Carbon dioxide dissolved in water is used as “green eluent.” Peptide is obtained pure. Assuming that equilibria in solution play a major role on the global separation factor compared to affinities for the support, peptides which can be fixed in a step but also eluted in another step should satisfy with a criterion: . The peptide dissociation constant must be between the two dissociation constants of carbonic acid, that is, 6.35 and 10.35 (at 298 K).

Georges Grevillot

Papers

Ion Exchange‐Assisted Electrodialysis for Treatment of Dilute Copper‐Containing Wastes

Stagewise Liquid-Liquid Extraction Parametric Pumping. Equilibrium Analysis and Experiments

Amino acids separations by displacement chromatography. Effects of homogeneous and heterogeneous equilibria on separation performances

Donnan partition parametric pumping. Concentration and dilution effects in ion exchange parametric pumping

ESIEX-Electrical Swing Ion Exchange a Process Coupling Ion Exchange, Carbonic Acid Elution, and Electrochemical Regeneration