{"id":168623,"date":"2025-10-08T07:29:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T05:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=168623"},"modified":"2025-10-01T13:53:01","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T11:53:01","slug":"uh-researchers-unveil-breakthrough-in-carbon-capture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/uh-researchers-unveil-breakthrough-in-carbon-capture\/","title":{"rendered":"UH Researchers Unveil Breakthrough in Carbon Capture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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Mim Rahimi \u00a9 University of Houston<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Led by Mim Rahimi, a professor at UH\u2019s Cullen College of Engineering, the team made two significant breakthroughs that could reduce the cost of capturing harmful emissions from power plants, marking a major step in addressing climate change.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first breakthrough,\u00a0published in Nature Communications<\/em><\/a>, introduces a membraneless electrochemical process that slashes energy requirements for amine-based carbon dioxide (CO\u2082) capture. The second breakthrough,\u00a0featured on the cover of ES&T Engineering<\/em><\/a>, demonstrates a vanadium redox flow system capable of both capturing carbon and storing renewable energy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Mim
Mim Rahimi, professor at UH\u2019s Cullen College of Engineering \u00a9 University of Houston<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
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\u201cClimate change mitigation was basically the reason we pursued this research,\u201d Rahimi<\/strong> said. \u201cWe need solutions, and we wanted to be part of the solution. The biggest suspect out there is CO\u2082 emissions, so the low-hanging fruit would be to eliminate those emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Originally published in a research paper titled \u201cA Membraneless Electrochemically Mediated Amine Regeneration for Carbon Capture,<\/a>\u201d the team first focused on replacing the conventional ion-exchange membrane in the electrochemically mediated amine regeneration process with gas diffusion electrodes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That proved to be a game-changer. Not only were the membranes the most expensive part of the system, but they were also a primary reason for performance issues and maintenance cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By engineering the gas diffusion electrodes, the team was able to achieve more than 90% CO\u2082 removal, nearly 50% more than traditional EMAR approaches. That\u2019s a capture cost of approximately $70 per metric ton of CO\u2082, which makes it competitive with state-of-the-art amine scrubbing methods, according to Ph.D. student Ahmad Hassan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cBy removing the membrane and the associated hardware, we\u2019ve streamlined the EMAR workflow and dramatically cut energy use,\u201d said Hassan, who was leading author of the paper<\/strong>. \u201cThis opens the door to retrofitting existing industrial exhaust systems with a compact, low-cost carbon capture module.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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Ph.D. student Mohsen Afshari
\u00a9 University of Houston<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Fellow Ph.D. student Mohsen Afshari built on those advances, publishing his findings in \u201cA Vanadium Redox Flow Process for Carbon Capture and Energy Storage<\/a>.\u201d That paper presented a reversible flow battery architecture that absorbs CO\u2082 during charging and releases it upon discharge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By leveraging the vanadium\u2019s chemistry, the process displayed strong cycle stability and a high capture capacity, suggesting the technology could provide carbon removal and grid balancing when paired with intermittent renewables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIntegrating carbon capture directly into a redox flow battery lets us tackle two challenges in one device,\u201d Afshari said. \u201cOur front-cover feature highlights its potential to smooth out renewable generation while sequestering CO\u2082.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

These discoveries promise to make waves for carbon capture technology and the energy industry going forward, with the ultimate goal being to reduce the carbon footprint associated with everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThese publications reflect our group\u2019s commitment to fundamental electrochemical innovation and real-world applicability,\u201d Rahimi<\/strong> said. \u201cFrom membraneless systems to scalable flow systems, we\u2019re charting pathways to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors and support the transition to a low-carbon economy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Led by Mim Rahimi, a professor at UH\u2019s Cullen College of Engineering, the team made two significant breakthroughs that could reduce the cost of capturing harmful emissions from power plants, marking a major step in addressing climate change. The first breakthrough,\u00a0published in Nature Communications, introduces a membraneless electrochemical process that slashes energy requirements for amine-based […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":168649,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"Sometimes less really is more \u2014 at least that is the case when it comes to improving carbon capture systems, according to a team of researchers at the University of Houston","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[10744,10416,12426,10743],"supplier":[9665],"class_list":["post-168623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-carboncapture","tag-circulareconomy","tag-climatechange","tag-useco2","supplier-university-houston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168623"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=168623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}