Dry Water Can Capture and Store CO2

Scientists have developed so-called ‘dry water’ with the potential to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations by capturing and storing CO2 emissions.

Developed by scientists at Liverpool University, ‘dry water’ seems to be oxymoronic, but it really is as it sounds. Actual water makes up 95 per cent of the material, but it is present in terms of individual water droplets that lie inside a silica shell.

Compared to the performance of water in individual form and silica in individual form, the dry water’s CO2 intake has been shown to be three times as powerful.

Dry Water: CO2 Capture and Storage

Details of the dry water’s CO2 capture and storage potential were provided at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society this week. Here, the University of Liverpool’s Doctor Ben Carter exclaimed: “There’s nothing else quite like it”, adding: “hopefully, we may see dry water making waves in the future.”

“Dry water is a fine powder: each grain smaller than a grain of sand – but each of these grains is in fact a tiny water droplet”, Carter explained at the start of his presentation.

”These are prevented from flowing back to a bulk liquid by a surface coating of hydrophobic water-repelling silica nanoparticles.”

He continued: “Dry water is quick and easy to form. By blending silica and water together at high speed you can form dry water as a powder in just 90 seconds.”

Dry water dates back to 1968 and, initially, it was assessed for possible use within the cosmetics industry.

Dry Water: Carbon Capture

Not only can dry water capture and absorb carbon dioxide, but it can also store methane: a feature that could aid the widespread adoption of natural gas (methane is present in natural gas).

Dry water could also provide methane fuel with a more convenient and safer storage platform for future vehicle power but, according to Carter, this situation is likely to be some way off yet.

“A great deal of work remains to be done before we could reach that stage”, he commented.