virgin earth global warming

Global warming carbon seqestration n reduction

There is tremendous opportunity to reduce carbon dioxide emissions with technology

At this time a variation on the Solvay Hou process to produce sodium carbonate appears to create a physically sequesterable form NaCO3 using salt water, ammonia, carbon dioxide, ammonia with energy requirments as minimal as the temperature shift between 52 to 112 degrees F; commercial versions of this process are described as regenerating almost all of the ammonia

coupling the ammonia regeneration efficiency of the solvay hou process with the work of Dr person at harvard who has characterized the absorption of carbon dioxide from flue gas as up to three quarters cheaper than current commercial varieties of ethanolamine sequestration
bring us to the statement:

the ipcc.ch report notes that a fifth of global energy use would go to carbon dioxide sequestration; published technology brings that to just 5 parts per hundred of global energy use

I have to verify why hou solvay hasn't been previously touted; how do you solve a global warming problem You solvay a global warming problem is too funny. I think an energy number with kj per mole of carbon dioxide sequestered is the the thing to arrive at with hou solvay

Coates work on polymerizing carbon dioxide with limonine at 20 to 30 c 7 atm with a â-diiminate zinc acetate catalyst gives the idea of using a catalyst to polymerize partially cracked coal or cyclohydrocarbons like propane then leaving these as huge heaps or liquid gas deposits of carbon dioxide sequestered with future fuel when a better process like nonorganic proton membrane

three areas of study remain thought provoking: superefficient sequestration of carbon dioxide from atmosphere, more efficient bases than ammonia, ammonia regeneration, the possibility of an all aqueous environmentally friendly completely underwater carbon sequestration system, the creation of an energy positive carbon sequestration system; plants do that

water contains much more dissolved carbon dioxide than air, thus skimming surface water at equatorial oceans (hmmm, cold water is more effective even though there is atmospheric diff)or wherever dissolved carbon dioxide is greatest then doing an environmentally pleasant transformation would be be beneficial

tethered plants could be engineered to make ammonia directly like other organisms; alkalinizing the upper few cm of frothy water which then streams towards a second near land nutrient source where things like bacteria thrive that make a carbon product

puffing n compression of carbon dioxide laden superhydroxides with temperature swings might be energy positive; kind of like hydraulically lifting up a car with soaking plant material, then going to original size on cooler temperatures; maybe theres a nonorganic jello that puffs up a third on pH change with size normalization from a new variable

global warming adjustment technology
http://www.virginearth.com/
ocean surface area waveguides
basically water absorbs co2; the size of ocean waves determines surface area; floating objects could be strategically placed to create greater surface are as an effect of wave division (big to little) as well as generate waves of the uptimum size to be at sea white crest waves which absorb the most co2 of all; areas of heightened wave activity could have floating material cast on them to create even greater surface area; electric mass drivers could be used to fling material from land onto the sea as nutrients; the better areas to do this activity would be those areas where ocean cloudiness from reevaporation was beneficial as well as the cloud masses lending moisture along known paths to areas that appreciated more rain;
a wavecauser that floated a few feet below the surface at cool water areas would do more carbon dioxide absorption; plants as well as marine creatures would flourish

urey with only co2 makes methane
the urey apparatus, which is just a spark through atmospheric air plus water vapor, is famous for producing amino acids; I think a carbon dioxide plus water version would produce a wide variety of trace hydrocarbons, it is nteresting to think on an array of trace carbon dioxide plus oxygen to much carbon dioxide plus oxygen characterized on spark reaction products; remembering those piezo spark lighters a windy dune full of piezoelectric particles creates carbon dioxide reaction products, which are more appreciated.

if im talking about a dune made of jumping disc like piezoparticles that make products a way to keep it to co2 n water absent Nitrogen is to canopy it plus have a water area; oxygen n carbon dioxide but not nitrogen come from water outgassing to meet atmospheric pressure on the canopied side


I think that a piezoelectric polymer could replace silver iodide as a clous seeding agent; such a polymer could be produced the way bacterial polymers are now; finally it occurs to me that engineering duckweed to tolerate the ocean is possible; a spongy duckweed could have massive effective surface area creating a multispecies marine food plus an ocean surface area multiplier ; floating wicks; polymer version of AgI seeding; marine duckweed

supercritical water; does it widen the range of carbon dioxide catalysis opportunities; supercritical water oxidizes most any oxidizable compound; cheme magazine article on reactors of this kind suggest about 7 sears prior to now there were energy generating supercritical water generators with the engineering thing being keeping the pipes from rapidly oxidizing; if Ni s a carbon dioxide catalyst then cheaper Fe or Boron might be a carbon dioxide catalysts at supercritical temp pressure areas; is there such a thing as a vibrating diamond anvil the momentarily creates supercritical areas to promote [co;o] as well as cheaper catalysis

carbon dioxide tesselation;
is there dry ice glass as well as ordered structure wikipedia says Mixtures of a-carbonia and a-silica may be a prospective very hard and stiff glass material stable at room temperature. Such glass may serve as protective coatings, e.g. in microelectronics.

if that is true then along with reaction products that make carbonaceous minerals there is a sequesterable carbon dioxide mineral



anthrene or larger fluidized bed proton membranes
coal is amng the sources of energy; doubling the efficiency of coal could be possible as proton membranes make use of PAH compounds like anthracene; migrating proton membranes towards high amu materials; wikipedia got there first; does MHD cause coherent PAH vapor effect which creates nonpolymer proton membrane possibility;

http://www.ipcc.ch/p...icalsummary.pdf
Process Number of sources Emissions (MtCO2 yr-1)
Fossil fuels
Power 4,942 10,539
Cement production 1,175 932
Refineries 638 798
Iron and steel industry 269 646
Petrochemical industry 470 379
Oil and gas processing N/A 50
Other sources 90 33
Biomass
Bioethanol and bioenergy 303 91
Total 7,887 13,466

bigger straw; viewing an agricultural grain plant the grain to straw ratio is large; as much as a third of the dry mass might be grain that is a beneficial product of grain development New varieties of grain with a third more rootstraw would sequester 7 billion people times 700 lbs of grain per year 4.9 billion pounds times the animal feed factor creates 2 or 3 billion metric tons of annual grain production; note: online worldwatch http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5539 says about 2.3 billion metric tons adding a third to the strawmass of these plants creates the billion tons of co2 removed per year branson requests

rootstraw mass improves nutrient content of the grain plus arguable sequesters the carbon longer than cropstraw; causing thios change to happen could be accomplished numerous ways: a seed librarian could just respecify which current varieties should be grown; breed new grain crops with bigger roots; apply a chemical like gibberelin (length) then phosphon (thickness) to current crops;politically areas like the european union could specify ag policies that favored high rootstraw mass sourced feedgrains on domestic or foreign materials;if higher amounts of carbon sequestration are preferred than there is a natural chemical that looks like cholesterol plus a benzene that is nonbiodegradeable plants engineered to make that chemical are more powerful sequestrants

rumplestiltskinerrific

the metabolic energy to produce the rootstraw comes from either longer growing varieties or efficiency the US is three times as efficient as China at growing grain thus there is much opportunity to favor rootststraw accompanied with a more productive farming technique

three billion tons of co2 comes from as much coal as usa uses

stoichiometrically co2 is near a third c, starch is half c, thus a billion tons of straw has a billion n a half tons of carbon dioxide sequestration

I think that dirt organisms like earthworms produce carbon dioxide as well as methane; noting that more than 79 pt of earths grain comes from US China EU with mechanized chemical aspects breeding an earthworm that makes zero Ch4 as well as just a third of the usual carbon dioxide as a result of breeding drowsy earthworms will attain the billion tons of carbon dioxide sequestration ; if earthworms are beneficial then hyperactive earthworms may be created http://www.shortnews.com says earthworms are carbon neutral; this says it goes with species http://cache.search....s...=1&.intl=us Dr. Xiaoming Zou should create a branson solution
Greetings Dr Zhou

I read about your work describing the ways earthworms affect global warming at url, recently I've been thinking on the multimillion dollar prize described at http://www.virginearth.com/ . I think your efforts could win that prize. Briefly describing the emissions variations of various worm species along with variations amongst a particular species gives engineers an opportunity to breed a worm suited to cereal cultivation areas that will reduce more than a billion tons of greenhouse emissions annually, the prize criteria.

Whether it is worm metabolic or nervous system activity(efficiency; hyperactivity), preferred dirt flavor(food composition), or GI tract fauna (greenhouse gases) describing a plan to create worms that are optimized to reduce global warming is sufficient to win the prize; numerous additional funds are also allocated to engineer, test, then popularize a technology based on your research.

I urge you to learn more about Richard Bransons funding structure as 3 billion has been allocated to reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide with a few million as a kind of idea motivator.

I am not associated with the Branson group. I did start an online solutions group at url you might like to visit http://groups.yahoo....up/virginearth/


visit virginearth.org
rotating carbon dioxide absorber emitter like space tether or van de graaf generator

moist van de graaf generator: high pH causes carbon dioxide solubility to go way up; I can only wonder how many more orders of magnitude are available from this chart: http://www.chem.usu....ssolvedCO2.html pH11 lookes like a mole per liter; pH 12 10 moles per liter; 10 moles per liter is vast: 44 grams; noting that electrolysis of water produces OH- at an electrode it appears to me that a van de graaf generator, which is just a rubber belt with a friction area at one side plus a big metal surface to accumulate protons at the other would create a super carbon dioxide absorbant surface if moistened or operated t high humidity near the electron surplus area; oh- is a proton grabber, thus surplus electrons on the 0 would, if drizzled with litmus water, show an basic surplus electron

the e- side of the van de graaf generator could be a moist electrode
note that moist might actually be a superhydrated conductive polymer like polymethyl methacrylate with a conductive chemical like potassium chloride; thus what is the highest effective electrode pH possible with an electrolysis electrode

does pure NaOH actually sequester kilograms of carbon dioxide as the chart suggests; what is the effect of a superbase (pH functionality, pka, 23 or a few hundred)on carbon dioxide dissolved at a structure like a liquid plastic; is it possible to place NaOH on a superbase such that the NaOH sequesters water while the carbon dioxide has stronger affinity to the superbase literally a layer of calcium hydride sponge or spongy fluid (think electrolytic capacitor) with NaOH atmosphere contact layer; the idea here is to create a hyperbasic material that grabs big amounts of carbon dioxide from air yet has a surface that protects the hydride from water

now the amazing part: space tethers have been tested, space elevators planned, basically just a long tether on an orbiting mass; if it is possible to rotate absorption surfaces

noting that a van de graaf generator actually moves protons physically to create charge I wonder where the protons come from; on a rubber belt its possible to imagine the hydrogen atoms coming off the molecule

going farther with this idea if the van de graaf generator proton () area was coated everywhere but a cm2 at top with a dry superacid which should repel protons does that cm2 have higher proton density thus higher current
streamin hydrogen plamsa use ice as van de graaf surface make heatless hydrogen
a van de graaf generator accumulates protons at an area different than that coated with dry superacid a jumping disc http://www.jumpingdisc.com/ changes shape suddenly with a 3 degree or less temperature change make a micro van de graaf generator with crystallized water as a proton source the item makes hydrogen nano version is super

yay

have a superacid area at a side, the layers of jumping disc, a vertical core conductor, plus a proton port kind of like http://www.drawingbl...id_s/14928.html yet cheap like surface mount microtechnology

vast amounts of solar energy create moderate winds as well as microthermal 3 degree fluctuations; think of a dune teeny winds pile up huge piles of potential energy; when a dune shifts with a whoomp then that energy is released; the rain cycle is the water version of that with people using hydroelectricity; all this is leading up to a micro or nanoparticle that uses anisotropic tribofunctional charge separation, with a dry superacid to arrange protons, that when blended with crystalline water or low grade tribohydrocarbon coal generates hydrogen as well as sequesters carbon dioxide [=======[ ]
with the carbon dioxide sequestration microparticle you could use wind dune tribocompression dynamics to provide energy; the hydrogen version would be from gentle microthermal evening light time temperature shifts


nope: a billion tons of water is near 300 billion gallon reservoir, that is littler than boston's water supply; a Kg of water can hold a fairly large number of grams of co2; thus if we said desalinating then spraying n billion tons of co2 saturated water onto the arctic would remove a billion tons of carbon dioxide each year as long as the arctic cap lasts; but it might be 4 or 7 at basic pH then thats "just" a eleven hundred boston reservoirs of water to spray at the arctic; although sodas plump when frozen thus the carbon dioxide is just partially sequestered








hilsch powered cooling from microgeodifferential
food animal sewage ch4 adjusment bacteria

an actual researcher was featured at New Scientist; she created GI tract bacteria that produce less methane than normal; ch4 is much more of a greenhouse gas than co2; my modification of her idea is to create a bacterium that can be used at animal waste ponds as well as human sewage plants that produces minimal ch4; her work proves this is immediately possible; near 7k lbs of co2 per person per year comes from support animals feed but during digestion as well as post digestion; 300 million times that is more than 2 billion tons of co2, maybe. I think it might have met the branson requirements when I figured it out


super beneficial to growing plants is the idea of adjusting the idea of leaf pH 7/10 of water goes to evaotranspiration with stomata raising the pH of stomata creates much higher diffusion of carbon dioxide to make plant grow two approaches are to just spray a buffered pH 9 or higher on the stomata side of leaves A super approach is to find out if different plants such as those that grow at dryer alkali flats currently optimize stomata pH to absorb the most carbon dioxide with the water they have then splice those genes to food plants I am feeling positive about this idea which creates more food with less water as well as heightens carbon dioxide sequestration

or mineral dividing efficiency; I've read that two german researchers came up with a new way to mill minerals; efficiency went from a pt or two to two or three pt; doubling that number again will have a very big effect on the more than a trillion pounds of minrals ground up annually; during the nineties I thought of a page or more of idea blurbs about ways to make this more efficient I even read about studies of crack propagation; big chunk little wedge tech
particle crushing causes a size distribution; the effect of little wedges on big chunks as well as milling edges on mineral surface are affected as a result of that distribution; changing the distribution to trimodal or rebatching partial grinds causes more energy optimal chunk energy point contact areas; variation basically each mineral has an optimal grind point force; more moderate pressures use less energy at the mill machine edge while pointy fragments concentrate force to mill the material

chunks to blobs to dots to powder each have a different fracture energy dynamic; multimodal sortation during grinding places those si chunks that are

if I remember ways to double the efficiency of grinding minerals I will write about that
microvelcro liquid water temp calcining I feel that changing the waters of hydration of minerals is possible at cool temperatures swiss report says cement production carbon dioxide is many billion tons
surface virbotessellation like tiling with geothian modes; 3d depth structure with acoustic cure
puffing filler: chunks that swell gradually over hours or months to provide compressive strengthening effect

it remains amazing that there is a stiff plastic version of carbon dioxide plus water plus socium chloride at -20 C http://www.lpi.usra....01/pdf/1689.pdf dry ice is near -77; it is possible there even higher temp eutectics; Kcl does what, what about sodium iodide, weirdest yet, but rather fun, hydrocarbon wax eutectic or even an ionic coal tar eutectic carbon dioxide clathrate sulfur has many forms; maybe there is a sulfur ion carbon dioxide ice sodium chloride clathrate that combines two pollutants from coal to make a durable storable clathrate like nonspreading ice9
a researcher would find most likely to have the high preferred liquefying point amongst crystal structures then create a crystal from there, it is possible cheap ionic hydrocarbons from coal tar like methylene chloride or big waxy hydrocarbons like dodecene chloride could bring the carbondioxide compound up to above freezing; (note: I think its like, "doh" that I tried to make a higher freezing ice while leaving the sodium chloride there; a niftier idea is what is the highest freezing carbon dioxide plus freshwater clathrate, optionally what is the most high pH form of those commercial gradual melt ice paks that last longer than ice at a cooler; better yet is it possible to make a switchable aluminum sulfate zwitterion like aluminum chloro sulfate or a ylide that has a high pH ) yet, so what, things like sodium carbonate are well known right now. is it permissable just to create sodium carbonate dunes to sequester carbon dioxide

wow: Developed by a Chinese chemist Hou Debang in 1930s. It is the same as the Solvay process in the first few steps. But, instead of treating the remaining solution with lime, carbon dioxide and ammonia is pumped into the solution, and sodium chloride is added until it is saturated at 40 °C. Then the solution is cooled down to 10 °C. Ammonium chloride precipitates and is removed by filtration, the solution is recycled to produce more sodium bicarbonate. Hou's Process eliminates the production of calcium chloride and the byproduct ammonium chloride can be used as a fertilizer.

that entire process can be accomplished near a natural body of water with gentle solar thermal to make 40 degrees

http://www.hcs.harva...-Separation.pdf Prior to this study, it was estimated
that thermal energy consumption for CO2 regeneration using the Aqua Ammonia Process
could be at least 75% less than if the MEA process is used for CO2 absorption and
regeneration.
http://pubs.acs.org/.../8609notw1.html is an article about ammonia based carbon dioxide sequestration; very different numbers; partially different process

note: I work better at previous computer which was removed, maybe my rodney dangerfield comment promoted stand up at library computer use

geek comment:
technically speaking, compare nyc spring n summer crime rates; then multiply that times the degree difference from global warming; each day prior to a solution raises USA between state crime dozens or hundreds of murders each d. thus, fbi could come out mission functional with global warming research permitted, just like

glommin co2 with ammonia; rich as well as atmospheric amounts
wet mesh
vapor vapor; a mole of water always has more carbon dioxide dissolved at it than a mole of air; 52 moles per liter, 5 grams carbon dioxide; .1 grams per mole of water; 1 mole of air at 14 g has .0375 grams carbon dioxide (thus, leaving water out to absorb equilibrium carbon dioxide then making a mole of water vapor concentrates the amount of carbon dioxide with each volume;

is there a polar fluid like an polar oil that will pass carbon dioxide but keep ammonia at dissolved side; there could be: diatoms with the right gap sizes
are like zeolites
hydroxylamine nh2oh might be a solution nonevaporative carbon dioxide sequestrant with renergability

I thought of this oxyfuel thing where as is well known using pure oxygen brings radical efficiency to plant size plus minimizes non product reaction nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide
it was clever, like if you purify the oxygen you get solvay process gas but theres more better economics than that, as solvay uses ammonia, but this other process uses a different base with less "serious" piping, uhhhh but the product is hcl, oops. is like a side process to most any oxyfuel chemical process where the nitrogen with carbon dioxide is actually of economic value as a feedstock

now, I know you are going to say, what can possibly be done with nitrogen that is cheaper than fischer troph process (nitrogen, iron catalyst, hi temp) the previous idea of using solar with dichroics to concentrate UV could be used to make nitrogen oxide, which unlike CO is a crummy feedstock, no, wait, its the rodney dangerfield of feedstocks, unless you have a use for nitric acid like electrochemistry; it might be possible to produce nitrous acid rather than nitric from n, o, UV ; wikipedia says The heterogenous reaction of nitrous oxide (NO2) and water produces nitrous acid. When this reaction takes place on the surface of atmospheric aerosols, product readily photolyses to hydroxyl radicals.

thus, nitrous acid, if you can make it, turns to highly desirable hydroxyl radicals plus aerosol dirt nitrate with UV

thus if nitrous acid is cheaper to make than ammonia, you could just bring aerosols plus UV to create surplus hydroxyl radical that could be used to sequester carbon dioxide

acs.org Coates's group reported a catalyst, â-diiminate zinc acetate, that polymerizes CO2 and epoxides http://pubs.acs.org/.../ja0472580.html is profound; 20 to 49 c at 7 atmospheres;broadened molecular weight distribution above 49 ;systematic variation of [(BDI)ZnOAc] complexes revealed improved activity with electron-withdrawing groups on the ligand backbone and moderate steric bulk present at the ortho positions of the N-aryl rings.5c-e Given that structurally similar catalysts displayed a broad range of activities, we synthesized and screened a collection of [(BDI)ZnOAc] complexes (2-10) for the copolymerization of LO and CO2 (Table 2). Entries 1-3 emphasize the sensitivity of the copolymerization to ligand sterics. Complex 3, with bulky isopropyl groups in the ortho positions, yields little polymer, most likely due to the inability of the complex to attain the necessary arrangement for epoxide enchainment. Decreasing steric bulk at the R1 and R2 positions to ethyl substituents (complex 2) increases catalytic activity; it might work on partially cracked coal to create polymers that yield either better coking feedstock or just a weird effect where people mine twice as much coal as they need, double the carbon content of the side pile, then consider the side pile as a fuel storage form with super naughty doubled carbon dioxide just waiting a few decades or just years for a better process; its an energy savings account that sequesters carbon dioxide

the energy calculations don't work but imagine saying: convert methane to power plus carbon dioxide then use the carbon dioxide to create cyclopropane polymers that could be stored right where the methane came from; junk coal is less than half carbon thus can be carbon dioxide polymerized to yield futuregoop

Utilization of Greenhouse Gases; Liu, C. J., http://www.oup.com/u...i=9780841238275
Combined Carbon Dioxide and Steam Reforming with Methane in Low Temperature Plasmas yay piezodunes
Enzymatic Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Methanol by Dehydrogenases Encapsulated in Sol-gel Matrix
Towards solar energy conversion into fuels: Design and synthesis of Ruthenium-Manganese Supramolecular complexes to mimic the function of photosystem II. , Licheng Sun et al.



actually I wonder about sequestering hcl, given the idea of clathrate sequestration plus the fact that hydronium as well as chloride are very common seawater ions, plus the fact that the absolute moles of hydrogen ions but not acidity (nope: weak acid dissociation constant differs)is constant, is it permissable to put hcl with seawater, is the dilution plume dangerous


ammonium mothballs tower;
equator has higher atmospheric density than arctic
modified hou process; regenerating ammonia from ammonium chloride
hmmmm
http://www.google.co...arbonate -trona the method of producing sodium carbonate from the aqueous NaOH- and NaCl-containing effluent from a chloralkali electrolytic diaphragm cell by carbonating the effluent, the improvement for recovering anhydrous sodium carbonate from the carbonated effluent which comprises subjecting the Na.sub.2 CO.sub.3 - and NaCl-containing effluent

perhaps the bold jerzor@yahoo.com http://www.geocities...7/abspat01.html would modify the process

the great salt lake could easily supply the volume of saline water as well as the 52 then 112 degrees f differential at volumes vastly larger than a billion tons per year (pumps released 2.73 million acre feet (3.4 km³)) the region already has vast mineral flats; the thing is producing the ammonia cheaply or regenerating the ammonium chloride to ammonia

also it is cheaper to pipe brine to 4 corners coal plants than carbon dioxide to the great salt lake; much of the energy would be cogen or skip transmission line aspects

also ammonium chloride has an odor; thus chilled or heated ammonium chloride under vacuum might yield purer ammonia than the combined ammonia scent with chlorine scent

ammonia electret "shot tower" regen
ammonia piezo water hammer regen





I guess I should work on that nonorganic proton membrane


ipcc.ch says that near a billion tons (.9)of carbon dioxide is associated with cement
EMCCement.com a Swedish American cement company has a new hypermilled product technology that saves 2-4/5 of the cement, thus EMCCement.com might represent .3 to .7 billion tons per year if very widely adopted

hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide saved from varying the waters of hydration on the form; think penrose tiling with variable oxidation

hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide from concrete efficiency via fresh standards better practices ; global standards software I wrote about EMCCement.com at Chinese Wikipedia http://zh.wikipedia....dia.org/wiki/水泥

partial calcining to strength ratio adjustor: more waters of hydration yet equivalent strength

ipcc.ch notes that monoethanolamine is used to move carbon dioxide from partial gas to a more concentrated form
systems separate CO2 from the flue
gases produced by the combustion of the primary fuel in air.
These systems normally use a liquid solvent to capture the
small fraction of CO2 (typically 3–15% by volume) present
in a flue gas stream in which the main constituent is nitrogen
(from air). For a modern pulverized coal (PC) power plant or
a natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plant, current
post-combustion capture systems would typically employ an
organic solvent such as monoethanolamine (MEA).

wikipedia

See also: carbon dioxide scrubber
Aqueous solutions of MEA (solutions of MEA in water) are used as a gas stream scrubbing liquid in amine treaters. For example, aqueous MEA is used to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from flue gas. Aqueous solutions can weakly dissolve certain kinds of gases from a mixed gas stream. The MEA in such solutions, acting as a weak base, then neutralizes acidic compounds dissolved in the solution to turn the molecules into an ionic form, making them polar and considerably more soluble in a cold MEA solution, and thus keeping such acidic gases dissolved in this gas-scrubbing solution. Therefore, large surface area contact with such a cold scrubbing solution in a scrubber unit can selectively remove such acidic components as hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and CO2 from some mixed gas streams. For example, basic solutions such as aqueous MEA or aqueous potassium carbonate can neutralize H2S into hydrosulfide ion (HS-) or CO2 into bicarbonate ion (HCO3-).

H2S and CO2 are only weakly-acidic gases. An aqueous solution of a strong base such as sodium hydroxide (NaOH) will not readily release these gases once they have dissolved. However, MEA is rather weak base and will re-release H2S or CO2 when the scrubbing solution is heated. Therefore, the MEA scrubbing solution is recycled through a regeneration unit, which heats the MEA solution from the scrubber unit to release these only slightly-acidic gases into a purer form and returns the regenerated MEA solution to the scrubber unit again for reuse.