Supercritical CO2 is having a moment in the sun again, at least from my admittedly odd point of view. The US DOE is once again touting the use of the substance in thermal electrical generation. The carbon capture and sequestration crowd are touting supercritical CO2 pipelines as the answer to the reality that burning fossil fuels makes CO2 that’s 2-3 times the mass and 450 times or more the volume of the fuels. And it’s being used in textiles and to extract interesting herbal elements from high-value plants that are legal in many jurisdictions. Heck, it’s even in heat pumps.
Phases Of Matter
There’s a lot to unpack here, so lets head back to the 19th century to figure out what the heck supercritical CO2 is. No, lets head back further to the ancient Greeks. And to be clear, it’s…
Read the full article originally published at cleantechnica.com.