Capture, React and Build

It is well known that the developing countries face many challenges in order to keep up with the developed ones around the world and to reach their level of progressiveness, they had to increase the industrial base and due to that there was a dramatic rise of CO2 emissions.Therefore,our research has focused on finding a solution that has a high efficiency and at the same time doesn’t cost much to lower the CO2 emissions.A solution that mimics a process done by the coral reefs to make their skeleton was selected. This skeleton depends on the CaCO3 which is a product of the reaction that involves captured CO2 reacting with Ca(OH)2 in water that works as medium.To apply this process,we used the calcium carbide residue(recyclable waste that is produced by large amount from acetylene gas industry)as a dis-solvent for carbon dioxide to produce calcium carbonate, fresh recyclable water and heat.

with the massive numbers of factories, the environment started to get deteriorated because of the creation of waste and the greenhouse gases emissions. They contribute globally by 37% of the overall co2 emissions (Chart 1)

These are some examples of its consequences:
1-The oceans are getting hotter and more acidic because they absorb 90% of the extra heat in the climate which causes the oceans to expand and contribute to higher sea levels,moreover,water acidity because of the Co2 affecting marine organisms

2-Humans health are also affected as they cause problems in our immune system and lungs. Also cause an increase in the temperature and they result in pollution of the food supply furthermore,hunger and malnutrition causing a lot of deaths.

Acetylene gas that is produced by Ktons every year causes tons of harmful waste (calcium carbide residue) that is thrown in streams and environment. this waste is 90% Ca(OH)2 which is used widely under its common name,slaked lime.The National Institutes of Health warns that CaOH is also toxic and can introduce serious health problems.

So we want a solution to get rid of co2 and this harmful waste and also produce raw material

We serve anyone who lives near an industrial area that contains cement factories as there are many countries that have factories located near residential areas. It’s true that some countries now encourage the companies to move their factories out of these areas but meanwhile as there are no actions have been taken yet, we need to be cautious and try as hard as possible to save people from undergoing the hazards of the co2 produced by these factories and also the climatic change problem as the co2 is a major contributor in it. We don’t only serve the people living in these areas, we also do serve anyone that works in these factories and could suffer the consequences of raising CO2 levels. We have a personal experience with this kind of problems as there as there is a cement factory located near our boarding school and we’ve once visited it to understand the problem. We can assure the solution will help getting rid of the CO2 that is produced from factories so that the people, the workers and whoever interested in this problem will no longer be concerned about it and they would have more time for solving other problems.

The technology that we depend on is the biomimicry concept as the solution is inspired by the mechanism of the process that coral reefs do in order to make their skeleton. Coral skeletons are made of aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate and the process of making them is done as follows:

With the raise of CO2 levels in the atmosphere, the seawater (H2O) started to uptake it. The motion of water helps some chemical reactions take place, these reactions produce more bicarbonate (HCO3) and fewer carbonate (CO32-) ions. Coral polyps bring in the seawater that contains these ions, along with calcium (Ca2+) ions into what it’s called a “calcifying space” that is between its cells and the surface of their existing skeletons. They then pump the hydrogen ions (H+) out of this space to produce more carbonate ions (CO32-) ions that bond with (Ca2+) ions to make calcium carbonate (CaCO3) for their skeletons

Mimicking this process would help solving the problem of high CO2 emissions from cement factories as it would prevent the leakage of CO2 from the chimney of the factory. The system would consist of a tank and two streams, one for the calcium hydroxide[Ca(OH)2] and the other is for the carbon dioxide (CO2) that is emitted and this pipe would be put on the top of the chimney. The product from this reaction between them would be the calcium carbonate (CaCO3) [limestone] that would in a brief precipitate because it is not soluble in the water. (about 2 tons of limestone for every ton of CO2). The resulted limestone could be used after separating it from the water in cement manufacturing as it is one of the main components in the cement industry and the remaining water could be used again in the reaction or in the agriculture as it would be pure.

The process mentioned above is done according to the chemical equation:
Ca(OH)2+CO2=CaCO3 + H2O 

-The source of the calcium hydroxide that is used is calcium carbide residue as using it would save millions of pounds when the project is applied in large scale. The CCR produces CaOH when it reacts with water.
The equation of the CCR:
2H2O + CaC2=Ca(OH)2 + C2H2 
Besides the CaOH, there is a heat produced which could be used in generating electricity or simply be used in drying the limestone after precipitation.

Our solution is innovative because unlike many solutions these days, we have chosen to be inspired by nature and nature only and use the concept of biomimicry which just started to spread in the last few years. Also, the whole idea may be primitive for some but this is the case, we have decided to make it simple so that many communities could benefit from it, particularly the poor ones where the CO2 represents a serious problem and may cause many health issues and in the worst cases lead to death, but the people there are too helpless to do anything in order to face it. The project as mentioned in many previous questions relies mainly on a waste (calcium carbide residue) that may be a problem in some societies and in some countries they get rid of it by throwing it in water which cause a new problem and so on in this endless loop. This means we solve three problems, the first two are CCR and the CO2, the third one is recycle, by establishing the project, we would encourage some countries and convince them to apply recycling in their everyday life

In a world full of disasters and countless issues but also amazing nature and mind blowing creatures that have the key to many of these destructive problems, we’ve realized how these two complete each other, like the lightning and the thunder, the tide, etc and from this point we started to search more about something that supports this claim and then we’ve found something called biomimicry, it’s a new term not everyone knows about and it’s about imitating nature (whether it’s a process, a shape of something, etc) it just has to be something from nature. We’ve gathered the internet and were so fascinated about its applications, therefore we’ve decided to depend on it and find a new application to solve the problem of CO2. Meanwhile, we’ve read articles about coral reefs how the great barrier reef was discovered for the first time in Australia and how many poor countries rely on them and that they are in danger because of the climate change (indigenous knowledge), after reading more, we’ve known that when the ocean uptakes the CO2 from the atmosphere, the coral animals use it to build the skeleton of the coral reefs. That’s done with the help of the motion of water -that are the reason why some reactions in it take place-. Our solution mimics this process with the same ingredients to get rid of the CO2 emissions from factories.

The solution depends mainly on the chemistry laws and mathematical calculations, therefore there is no doubt that it may fail. All the results are calculated from dealing with number onf moles, grams etc. 
The first equation of the acetylene gas when it’s dissolved in water to give the Ca(OH)2 that will involve in the reaction is:
2H2O + CaC2 ==> Ca(OH)2 + C2H2
The second equation demonstrates the reaction between the calcium hydroxide and the carbon dioxide:
Ca(OH)2 + CO2 = CaCO3 + H2O
Also here is the final result from our data that indicates the success of the experiment when using a 1.25 mole of calcium carbide residue to gain 1 mole of calcium hydroxide and then let it reaction with the CO2:
The cost for every 46 grams of treated CO2 The excess of carbon dioxide Efficiency
0.125 pound 2.76 grams 94>#br###And whenever the amounts of co2 that need to be treated increase, all we have to do is increasing the amounts of CCR by the same percentage.

We are serving all the people that are in danger of the CO2 hazards. The people we are currently serving are not much because we are still in the beginning and our project has not yet been established properly. They may reach 500 persons.

 The CO2 production worldwide rate in 2017 was about 5 billion tons, the deaths were not directly associated with the co2 itself but with the health problems caused by it such as the lung cancer (about 2.09 million people died because of it in 2018) and also people who would suffer from the hazards of the acetylene gas wastes when they are thrown in the environment or the water.

The people we are expecting to serve in one year if we reached our goals (i.e. our project would be used widely in many countries) and overcome the barriers, the death rate will be decreased significantly and we would serve about 33,300 people which would reach about 20 million in 5 years.

We are facing four barriers that are somewhere between financial and cultural. They did not stop us from doing our experiments, but still overcoming them would help us a lot with our research. The first barrier we are facing is the people, their fear of change and how they are so fixed in their ways, in other words our idea doesn’t seem very pleasant for all people especially because the biomimicry is a new concept and people here were raised with the idea that anything new is strange and bad. The second one which is finance is a result of the first, it is hard to find and convince an investor that has the courage to risk some of his money in a new invention, particularly when it is invented by some young students whose ages didn’t exceed 16 or 17. The third one is a more like a technical, it is the ability of getting all the components needed for the project. Somehow it is difficult to get some of the acetylene gas from the factories as some people think it is illegal which makes them afraid of getting involved in this kind of work. The last one is finding an efficient way in the separating process as we use the traditional filter papers which expends money and time.

No other

We are group of four girls but teachers in the school helped us like chemistry teacher moreover, professor at Asyut university, they have master in inorganic chemistry moreover, the school gave us a chance to go to Ansomat industry (industrial gas like acetylene gas) to see the waste and the amount of calcium carbide residue) the no of workers on our project is 10 four of them are professors helped us in searching and two chemistry teachers to be supervisor on us

we learned a lot about inorganic chemistry , concept of biomimicry and how to apply it to real life moreover, crafts and fab lab skills because in our school we used fab lab for wrapping, cutting and we did a prototype so we benefited a lot and writing skills and how to be specific in your answer all that helped in working in lab  

We are students from STEM School in Egypt, this school depends on something called capstone that is a project every semester to solve one of Egypt Grand Challenge this semester the challenge is how to increase the industrial bases in Egypt by mimic the nature, so we got this idea and the School save a chance to go to universities and ask professors for help so they helped us a lot to reach our results moreover, there are labs to do experiment with a lot of chemicals and equipment. 

As we have mentioned before one of the barriers we face is the funding. We do not need much funding as what we need are just the components (the calcium carbide residue, the pipes and the tank that would be established in the top of the chimney to be the place of the reaction), they are all available and we do not need anything made of special material or something. The funding for sure won’t be granted, it would be a debt funding as both sides would benefit from establishing the project. The investor would just have to pay for the essentials materials mentioned above and in return he would take some interests from selling the products which are (2 tons of limestone, a pure water that is usable for agriculture which could be used in some countries where water crisis reached a serious level, and lastly a heat that could be used in drying processes or generating electricity). They will all be produced by large amounts when we apply the project in large scale.

The funding varies from a country to another, e.g. one kilo of calcium carbide residue in Egypt costs about 1.5 L.E which is equivalent to 0.090 USD, in some countries acetylene manufacturing is illegal but if you want to buy the calcium carbide from amazon or any online shopping websites, it would cost about 7 dollars.

Our income will be the calcium carbonate produced (Organizational Support Model): The organizational support model of social enterprise sells products and services to an external market, businesses or general public. In some cases, the target population or "client" is the customer. We produce 2 tons of calcium carbonate for every one ton of carbon dioxide capturing so we don’t need mining and CaCO3 produce by low cost because we used waste as a medium to dissolve carbon dioxide then we can sell the calcium carbonate to cement industries all over the world so that will be a good source of money and fresh water that produced from the experiment we can recycle it to irrigate fields moreover acetylene gas that is can be put in tubes and sold so we ca gain a lot of money and solve the world problems.

The first barrier is: People because biomimicry is a new way of technology and maybe the idea can be unpleasant for some. we need to realize the people by climate change affect and amount of greenhouse gasses that emitted every day moreover diseases that happened by air pollution and biomimicry is a technology that used in modern life for example: the BULLET TRAINS INSPIRED BY KINGFISHER BIRDS.

Finance: We asked for help to sponsor our project with machines and the system but who will help some students in grade 11 so we test our project on a small scale and got perfect results so we wrote to you to help us. 

Acetylene gas capturing: there are sensors to know the amount of acetylene gas, machines to capture it and efficient system to use it in drying calcium carbonate that produced from the reaction so we need money to buy all these thing in every company to take the biggest benefits of the project.

Filtration system: Calcium carbide residue is a waste contains impurities so using filter paper will cost a lot and need a lot of time moreover, it will not be a good idea on large scale so we suggested that a net with specific pores fitting with calcium carbonate pores size to precipitate CaCO3, which will save money and time.

No other

we need organisation that is interested in recycling wastes and another for climate change issue.

As this prize is offered for computing techniques, surely it will help us in achieving the plan of using electric sensors- the sensors that will detect the amount of calcium hydroxide that enters the reaction place to be suitable for capturing the amount of carbon dioxide that is emitted from the chimney of the factories-that are based completely on programming and modern technology. Surely this prize will contribute to applying this important part of our work. It is very important to be applied to maintain the amount of calcium hydroxide that is required for capturing these carbon dioxide emissions according to the amount of these emissions that are released from the cement factories.

A solution -for reaching zero waste and zero carbon- was thought about to be applied by the help of GM prize. This solution is based on modifying the design and the manufacturing techniques of the filtration process of calcium carbide residue in order to turn it into a pure calcium hydroxide-instead of the prevalent filtration process that may allow some impurities to be gone with calcium hydroxide and this will cause the calculations to be not very accurate. As said previously, for capturing 46 grams of carbon dioxide, about 74 grams of calcium hydroxide must be added. For that, the existence of some impurities will make small amount of calcium hydroxide weight more than it actually weights and as a result, certainly there will be an amount of carbon dioxide that couldn’t be captured will be released to the air. Either this amount is small or large, zero carbon won’t be reached. This problem will be solved by a solution that will be supported by GM prize- a solution that modifies the design of this filtration process to be a process that contains motors and follows the modern technology to reach the top level of filtration and get 100% pure calcium hydroxide. 

As the solvers of the carbon dioxide emissions are girls, their rights weren’t taken in the proper way as it was rejected by some competitions for this reason.  But by participating in this competition, and winning this prize, there will be a good chance for making them become at high level of respect and trusting them more which will courage many girls to participate and, the adventure and solve the challenges that face them. This will encourage all girls to try by themselves generally

In order to benefit from acetylene gas that is produced from calcium carbide residue, there must be a specific type of sensor available. And also a net with specific pores had to used and as this gas is very reactive with water and causes fire because of its high temperature, many techniques have to be applied as a Cautious from its dangers on the environment. The sensor, the net and the techniques all cost a lot and it is predictable that this prize will solve this problem an allow the project to applied completely