DR. FRANK S. ZEMAN

Much of the attention of late has been focused on finding new ways to scrub carbon dioxide from power plant stacks or to capture it and sequester it below ground. This, say some scientists, misses a crucial point: how to effectively — and, more importantly, cheaply — remove the carbon dioxide that is issued from millions of tailpipes and homes from the air.
 
Frank Zeman, an engineer at Columbia University, and his colleagues claim they may have just discovered such a solution. They report in a new study that employing the technology used by pulp and paper mills — industrial-scale "scrubbers" — could help draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The captured gas could then be stored by being pumped underground or into the ocean.
 
Zeman's process would work by moving air through a packing material-filled chamber where it would come into contact with a sodium hydroxide solution — a liquid that absorbs carbon dioxide. The resulting solution would be combined with lime to precipitate limestone — which could then be heated to release a form of carbon dioxide ready for storage (or, if some of Zeman's other ideas pan out, for transportation fuels).