Posted on Mon, Nov. 09, 2009

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Teens' artificial trees will store CO2

By MARA ROSE WILLIAMS

Kansas City Star

When is a tree that acts like a tree not a tree at all?

When it's a metal tower that absorbs, transforms and stores carbon dioxide and is made by two teenage math and science whizzes as a research project on climate change.

Tyler Clark, 17, of St. John, and Ben Davis, 16, of Wichita, both high school juniors attending the Kansas Academy of Mathematics and Science at Fort Hays State University, expect to build the "artificial tree towers."

"We hope to have a prototype by December and a full-scale model by the end of summer," Clark said. "But it won't look like a tree. More like a big, tall column or rectangular pyramid."

David Keith, a professor at the University of Calgary in Alberta, developed carbon-dioxide-catching towers years ago. Keith's concept uses resin to capture carbon dioxide as bicarbonates in a dry form. When flushed with water, the carbon dioxide is dumped.

Chuck Rice, a soil scientist doing research on climate change at Kansas State University, said that while the premise was good, the next question was "how to dispose of the CO2 once it's collected."

Clark and Davis have ideas about disposal, but they said they were still researching.

They are also trying to figure out how much their artificial trees will cost to build.

Paul Adams, who teaches global climate change at Fort Hays State, will help them apply for grants to fund their project.

But for starters, materials will come from the university's department of technology studies, where some students have volunteered to help build the first model. Clark estimates it will be about 6 to 7 feet tall and 3 to 4 feet wide.

"We'd like to put the towers on college campuses around the state," Davis said.

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