New technology that can help reduce global warming
Finding better ways to deal with pollution is only the beginning. Our research could even help tackle global warming. Dr Semali Perera, Department of Chemical Engineering |
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Dr Semali Perera of the University of Bath is carrying out research on new materials and configurations with potential in a number of applications including pollution control.
Her work includes the development of cost effective solutions for the separation and recovery of two major pollutants contributing to the greenhouse effect, carbon dioxide CO2 and volatile organic hydrocarbons - VOCs.
Putting nanotechnology to work
Dr Perera's research is based on nano-porous fibres of ceramic and polymeric with tiny pores less than 1000th of the width of a human hair. These contain materials that trap volatile hydrocarbons and other gases, allowing them to be removed and even recycled, reducing damage to the environment while reducing costs.
As she explains My particular interest is in the technology development from novel molecular sieving adsorbent hollow fibres and drug encapsulated fibres. An important parameter of the fibre is to have fine pores (<2nm, 10-20nm, 20-50nm, <100nm) depending on the application. With this size of pores we can filter at a molecular level it is an effective application for nanotechnology that lets us find some effective new ways to deal with a range of challenges.
The technology is versatile its first use is likely to be in the beverage industry, but there are many potential uses in other areas, such as removing petrol vapour including benzene at filling stations. However, the most exciting application of Dr Perera's work is to provide answers to larger scale environmental problems including making a significant contribution to reducing global warming by cutting the emissions from industrial processes.
A vital need
According to figures recently released by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, net emissions of carbon dioxide in the UK were over 500 million tonnes in 2005. This represents a significant proportion of global man-made emissions, and a high percentage can be identified as the result of factory emissions. With CO2 now recognised as a major contributor to global warming, finding effective ways to capture and recycle it has become a priority.
Dr Perera's research provides prospects of an effective solution. Her findings have paved the way for a new generation of adsorbent fibres with low mass transfer resistance, high separation and recovery efficiencies, which can be used in any size of gas stream. Work to make this technology the basis of practical systems for the real world is now well underway.
This work includes developing systems to trap carbon dioxide and other pollutants from smoke-stacks. It uses a fraction of the energy of conventional solutions; early trials of the technology have shown that it uses less than five per cent of the energy needed by the state of the art cleaning processes currently used in industry.
Other applications
In addition to its huge potential environmental benefits, the fibre technology that Dr Perera is pioneering has also been recognised as having medical applications: from efficient blood oxygenators, to providing new solutions for cancer treatment by developing slow release drug delivery vehicles.
Supporting Dr Perera's work
The potential of Dr Perera's research has already earned recognition with a Brian Mercer Award for Innovation from the Royal Society. These were established by the Royal Society as the result of a bequest from the late Dr Brian Mercer. The funding from the award will be used to develop the smokestack cleaning technology to commercial viability.
