Jason E. Bara, Douglas L. Gin, & Richard D. Noble on Ionic Liquids & CO2 Capture
New Hot Papers Commentary, July 2010
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Article:Guide to CO2 Separations in Imidazolium-Based Room-Temperature Ionic Liquids
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Jason E. Bara, Douglas L. Gin, & Richard D. Noble talk with ScienceWatch.com and answer a few questions about this month's New Hot Papers paper in the field of Engineering.
Why do you think your paper is highly
cited?
Individually, ionic liquids and CO2 capture have both been very hot areas of research over the past few years, and we wanted to provide a useful reference to illustrate the progress in the various uses of ionic liquids as solvents for CO2 capture that have been proposed.
Coauthor Douglas L. Gin
Coauthor Richard D. Noble
We think that the paper is highly cited because it provides a very convenient and comprehensive recent overview of the broad work that has been done by us and others using ionic liquids for CO2 capture.
Does it describe a new discovery, methodology, or
synthesis of knowledge?
In addition to compiling and organizing all of the data that had been published by our group and others at that time, we provided several new experimental results, which expanded upon previous works. We also included concise background information on related topics and a perspective as to what directions the field might go next.
How did you become involved in this research, and
how would you describe the particular challenges, setbacks, and
successes that you've encountered along the way?
We became involved in this research because of the timely opportunity it presents. Finding a cost-effective, energy-efficient solution for capturing the billions of tons of annual CO2 emissions from power plants and other industrial sources is one of the most challenging engineering problems of our time.
Ionic liquids provide some very unique opportunities to address these challenges. Achieving economically viable CO2 capture is not only a matter of finding the "right" ionic liquid, or a combination of an ionic liquid and another solvent (e.g. amine), but also a matter of designing and operating cost and energy efficient processes that take full advantage of the unique properties of ionic liquid-based solvents.
Where do you see your research leading in the
future?
We certainly have gained a lot of knowledge about ionic liquids in the lab,
and as chemical engineers, we need to apply that knowledge to make ionic
liquid-based solutions work for CO2 capture at large scales in the
field.
Jason E. Bara, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Chemical & Biological Engineering
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
Richard D. Noble
Alfred T. & Betty E. Look Professor
Dept. of Chemical & Biological Engineering
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO, USA
Douglas L. Gin
Professor
Dept. of Chemical & Biological Engineering
and
Dept. of Chemistry & Biochemistry
University of Colora
KEYWORDS: CO2 SEPARATIONS, IMIDAZOLIUM-BASED ROOM-TEMPERATURE IONIC LIQUIDS, PERFORMANCE DATA, CAPABILITIES, LIMITATIONS, REGULAR SOLUTION THEORY, CARBON-DIOXIDE SOLUBILITY, SENSITIZED SOLAR CELLS, GAS SEPARATIONS, NATURAL GAS, HYDROCARBON SOLUBILITIES, MEMBRANE TECHNOLOGY, CAPTURE.