Chemical Engineering Seminar

Abstract:

The accelerated weathering of limestone (AWL) is a mimic of the earth's natural CO2 buffering process. The base in limestone rocks neutralizes the acid in CO2 to make bicarbonate ions in solution. This is much like what happens when you take an antacid to stop your indigestion! In this talk I'll show you how our new company has spun out of Caltech using basic research on the dissolution of calcium carbonate (the stuff shells are made from) to make carbon sucking reactors that can travel on ships to reduce their emissions while crossing the ocean. We will talk about the basic data behind our climate crisis, the challenges of rising CO2, and solutions to the problem that are in our grasp, if we choose to solve them.

Biography:

Jess Adkins is the Smits Family Professor of Geochemistry and Global Environmental Science in the Department of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech.  He is a member of the Linde Center for Global Environmental Sciences and on the faculty of the Department of Engineering and Applied Science.  Jess started at Caltech in 2000 after receiving a BS in Chemistry from Haverford College in 1990 and a PhD in Chemical Oceanography from the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in 1998.  The Adkins lab studies both the history of earth's climate on a variety of timescales and the biogeochemical cycles of the modern ocean.  Over the years the lab's work has concentrated on: deep-sea corals, both as an archive of rapid climate change and to better understand carbonate biomineralization, stalagmites from Borneo to document the last 500,000 years of tropical climate history, sulfur isotopes in natural waters and carbonates to understand the history of atmospheric oxygen and the contributions to rock weathering at the global scale, and models of past climate change to better understand why there are glacial cycles.  His group has worked out the dissolution rate of calcium carbonate in seawater for both its chemical rate law and its role in the alkalinity cycle.  This work pushed Jess to start a company, Calcarea, that is focused on using the accelerated weathering of limestone to decarbonize the ocean shipping industry and participate in the larger decarbonization economy.