Using Carbonic Anhydrase and Silica Nanomaterials in Carbon Dioxide Mitigation

As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to rise, the necessity for efficient and effective carbon mitigation and sequestration techniques increases as well. However, attempts thus far have proven to be too expensive or speculative to be implemented on a global level. Our goal was therefore to devise a solution that is both efficient and cost effective. To do this, we utilized the catalytic properties of carbonic anhydrase, an enzyme contained in the lungs of mammals, to accelerate the reaction that converts carbon dioxide to bicarbonate, which can then be converted to useful products such as baking soda. Because enzymes are normally difficult to recover and can easily denature in suboptimal temperatures and pH levels, we attached them to silica nanospheres via enzyme immobilization in order to make them recoverable and more resilient to changes in environmental conditions. In testing this process, our results showed that a solution containing the immobilized enzymes was around 67 percent more efficient over the control, which contained no enzymes. Furthermore, we saw success in the silica’s ability to immobilize the enzymes, as they were able to immobilize between 66.4 and 77.4 percent of the carbonic anhydrase in solution. Though we need to conduct further research to optimize this procedure, these positive preliminary results indicate that there is much promise in pursuing this method as means for carbon mitigation.