Team:AHUT-ZJU-China/Implementation
AHUT-ZJU-China
Proposed Implementation
Carbon Dioxide(CO2) is the most important greenhouse gas, which has great impacts on the environment, such as greenhouse effect. On March 7, 2016, Zhenhua Xie , a member of the National Committee of the Chinese people's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said in response to a reporter's question that the carbon dioxide emission in China will reach the peak in 2030. This is due to China's national conditions, developing countries, in which development must have energy support, but the energy industry structure needs a lot of adjustment, requiring low-carbon green cycle development. Power sector is the largest CO2 emission sector in China, and the main source of CO2 is thermal power generation, especially coal-fired power generation. In the past 20 years, 75% of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere was caused by the combustion of fossil fuels, and the carbon emissions from power generation accounted for 37.5% of the world. Flue gas from power plants is a long-term stable and concentrated source of CO2 emission. So it is very urgent to lower carbon dioxide emissions.
Our project is to extract carbonic anhydrase (OT3-CA-WT) from thermophilic bacteria (Pyrococcus horikoshii OT3). The purpose of mutation is to improve the activity of OT3-CA-WT and help it capture carbon dioxide; therefore it can be used in industrial production, thermal power generation and coal power production to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In this regard, we have built a special experimental device (fig.1&fig.2) to capture carbon dioxide at high temperature, and introduce calcium ions to form calcium carbonate precipitation. The generated calcium carbonate can also be used in building materials, paper making, rubber manufacturing, plastic industry and so on.
Fig.1 The internal view of the design device (CO2 capture device)
Fig.2 Appearance drawing of design device (CO2 capture device)
The internal parts of the experimental device are shown in Figure 3 (fig.3)
The functions of each part are described as follows:
(1) The top cover (1* in fig.3) is made of cuprous oxide material, which is a better high-temperature resistant material;
(2) The Plasmid culture plate (2* in fig.3) is constructed of porous ceramics, which can withstand high temperature and realize the function of ventilation;
(3) The Ca ion inlet (3* in fig.3), is synthesized with zirconia fiber. The Ca ion reaction absorber (4* in fig.3), can achieve our goal of combining our product and the calcium ion to generate stable precipitation and realize the reuse purpose;
(4) The CO2 concentration monitor (5* in fig.3) can reflect the CO2 capture ability of the device at any time;
(5) The Calcium carbonate outlet (6* in fig.3) is able to collect calcium carbonate products, which can be reused in various fields such as industrial manufacturing.
The overall device is environmentally friendly and efficient and realizes the environmentally friendly characteristics.
Fig.3 Design device (CO2 capture device) internal parts drawing
We can use our CO2 capture devices in all aspects such as clothing, food, housing and transportation. With the change of seasons, people are used to using air conditioning to adjust the temperature, but they don't know that a lot of carbon dioxide will be emitted when the air conditioner is cooling or heating. Our idea is to install our CO2 capture device inside the air conditioner to reduce the harm to the environment and human body. In addition, in the field of food processing, some food processing machines will consume a lot of energy, which undoubtedly aggravates the emission of carbon dioxide. We can install our designed CO2 capture devices in these devices to reduce the CO2 waste gas generated in the production and manufacturing field. At the same time, the calcium carbonate products generated can continue to be reused in the manufacturing of industrial building materials.
In addition, in our daily life, we can also use CO2 capture devices. For example, cooking fume contains a lot of carbon dioxide. We can add our device to the range hood to absorb carbon dioxide efficiently. The carbon dioxide emitted from automobile exhaust is also one of the causes of exhaust gas. If we can design our capture device more delicately and add our device to the tail gas pipe of the automobile, we can absorb a large amount of automobile exhaust gas, and provide a new design method for the automobile manufacturing field, so as to make it more environmentally friendly and efficient. Secondly, our new methods can also be used in industrial manufacturing, such as chemical plants, rubber and plastic factories, building materials companies, printing plants. The production and manufacturing in these fields will produce a lot of carbon dioxide, which not only pollutes the environment, but also causes great harm to human health.
Our idea is to capture carbon dioxide in industrial production with our capture device and dissolve it in alkaline calcium hydroxide solution. The carbonate ion generated will combine with calcium ion to form calcium carbonate. The product calcium carbonate can be reused in the material synthesis of building materials factory, the synthetic plastic industry of plastic factory, the paper production of printing factory, etc. It with high utilization rate and economic and practical. Because the use of biotechnology to capture carbon dioxide itself is environmentally friendly and efficient, so the materials used in our device and the whole capture process are pollution-free. Whether in the factory manufacturing or in our daily life, the use of our device can achieve reliable safety indicators. Not only that, if it can be used reasonably, its effect on improving the environment will be far beyond our imagination.
However, we also face greater challenges. For example, how to save the cost of constructing the device to maximize the income; how to control the temperature of the surrounding environment so that the enzyme can achieve efficient binding capacity; and how we should make the device smaller and more efficient, which can expand its application field, etc. We will continue to study methods to solve these challenges and look forward to the application of CO2 capture devices in various fields.