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System Models of Sulfur‐, Electricity‐, and Methane‐Powered Biological Carbon Capture for Negative Emissions
Author(s) -
Snyder Brian F.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
energy technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.91
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 2194-4296
pISSN - 2194-4288
DOI - 10.1002/ente.201900467
Subject(s) - carbon fibers , environmental science , sulfur , fossil fuel , greenhouse gas , biomass (ecology) , electricity , energy source , methane , electricity generation , sulfide , carbon capture and storage (timeline) , waste management , climate change , chemistry , ecology , engineering , computer science , power (physics) , physics , electrical engineering , organic chemistry , algorithm , quantum mechanics , composite number , biology
Nearly every plausible emission scenario that limits climate change to less than 2 °C includes net negative global emissions in the late 21st century. These negative emissions are achieved using negative emission technologies (NETs), a diverse class of currently theoretical technologies that use energy to remove CO 2 from the atmosphere. While a number of technological options are available, many of the most promising CO 2 capture systems take advantage of biological systems and are thus driven by light energy. Sulfur offers an alternative energy source for biological carbon capture. Herein, system models are presented that use reduced sulfur to power marine chemosynthetic carbon capture, with four proposed alternatives for the management of the produced biomass and sulfate. These four alternatives differ in the energy and process used to reduce the sulfate produced by the growth of the microorganisms back to sulfur or sulfide and in sum, the four systems create direct air carbon capture systems that utilize either geologic reduced sulfur, electricity, or biomass as energy sources. Thus, three new energy sources for direct air carbon capture are identified.