The kinetics of binding carbon dioxide in magnesium carbonate

Humans currently consume about 6 Gigatons of carbon annually as fossil fuel. In some sense, the coal industry has a unique advantage over many other anthropogenic and natural emitters of CO{sub 2} in that it owns large point sources of CO{sub 2} from which this gas could be isolated and disposed of. If the increased energy demands of a growing world population are to be satisfied from coal, the implementation of sequestration technologies will likely be unavoidable. The authors` method of sequestration involves binding carbon dioxide as magnesium carbonate, a thermodynamically stable solid, for safe and permanent disposal, with minimal environmental impact. The technology is based on extracting magnesium hydroxide from common ultramafic rock for thermal carbonation and subsequent disposition. The economics of the method appear to be promising, however, many details of the proposed process have yet to be optimized. Realization of a cost effective method requires development of optimal technologies for efficient extraction and thermal carbonation