A new technology that uses aminosilicones, a product found in hair conditioners and fabric softeners, has proven successful in removing 90 percent of the carbon dioxide from the simulated flue gases created by coal-fired power plants.
Chemists at General Electric Global Research, reporting their findings at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, said that using aminosilicones as a scrubber material holds the promise of stripping CO2 from flue gases more efficiently and cheaply that current compounds being tested as CO2 scrubbers.
Robert Perry, a chemist who helped invent the aminosilicone scrubber system, said the material will soon be used on a pilot scale at a power plant.