It's like throwing away money. Carbon dioxide released by power plants could supply carbon atoms to create fuels and chemicals, or be used to push out leftover fuels from the subsurface. All these options rely heavily on economically viable technologies to capture the carbon dioxide. Such technologies exist but are still too costly for power plants. Scientists from diverse disciplines have been working on these carbon challenges, each with a different approach to finding answers.

Vanda Glezakou and Roger Rousseau at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory decided it was important to get everyone in the same room and talking about their approaches and findings. So they've organized a symposium to encourage a spirited exchange of ideas around computational chemistry. Titled Computations for CO₂ Capture, Conversion & Sequestration, the event will be held at the American Chemical Society's national meeting on Sunday, April 2.

They've brought together experts from catalysis, materials chemistry, environmental sciences, geochemistry, computational chemistry, and physics to share their latest research and discuss future research directions. Several PNNL researchers will showcase their expertise as well, including David Heldebrant, known for his research in carbon dioxide capture solvents, Simone Raugei, known for modeling chemical and biochemical processes for energy production, and Sebastien Kerisit, known for his work in modeling geochemical processes.

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