An Opportunity to Learn about Carbon Capture - Week 2

This is Alyssa, I've just finished up my second week of research on fluidized bed at Columbia University.

The beginning of week 2, I finished up looking at my assigned reading from the book Fluidization Engineering. At first, I thought I was going to carry out the fluidization experiments this week, but it turned out that the computer still needed a compatible program. So most of the week a master student at my lab was working on MATLAB and I helped out at another project- carbon capture.

One thing I'm glad I did was reaching out to another intern to learn about his carbon capture work. It seemed to be very interesting when I watched him do his experiments, but I did hesitate a bit before asking if he needed help because he was quite busy. Nevertheless, I approached him with questions regarding his work and offered help. He explained to me what carbon capture is and gave me a few things to do - mixing solutions, testing pH values, acquiring data... It is indeed my area of interest and I enjoyed studying carbon capture very much. I learned from my experience that helping out at another project is always a good way to know more about other areas of study. Dr. Peretz's advice was very useful - we should always look for things to do when we are free and learn about what others in our lab are doing.

Another great experience this week was joining the other members of the Park Group to attend a meeting about the future of carbon capture. The lecturer talked about the present situation of the project and pointed out a few problems about it. At first, the researchers saw it a promising project because according to the experts, the price of building carbon pipes would be quite cheap. Yet, from what the lecturer said, the old age of power plants and the unexpectedly high cost of building carbon pipes (20-30 Million USD per 50 miles) are problems researchers face. Then, Dr. Park led us to discuss whether this project would have a future, since the current economic situation does not provide researchers with sufficient capital (the marginal profit for carbon capture is low) and people are not really aware of the environmental benefits it would bring in the long run. Through the discussion, I realized that there are a lot of factors influencing the popularity and plausibility of one research, and scientists need to be critical of the information given because it often changes.

To elaborate on carbon capture, it is basically a way of storing carbon and lowering greenhouse gas emission. Here are some pictures of the carbon capture experiments I did.

pH value measuring instrument

Pump used for water dripping experiment. Typically we put it up on a shelf, insert syringe containing DI water and mineral,  then get samples in time intervals of 5s, 10s, 30s, and 60s

Test tubes containing liquid samples obtained in 4 attempts

I had a fun and educational time in my lab this past week. I hope everyone else's research is going well too!