A novel green technology: Reducing carbon dioxide and eliminating methane from the atmosphere

The greenhouse effect is exacerbated as greenhouse gas concentrations rise. Capturing and degrading methane in the atmosphere can effectively slow the trend of global temperature rise. The solar chimney power plant integrated with photocatalytic reactor (SCPP-PCR) is a promising concept for both clean electricity generation and large-scale atmospheric methane removal. In this paper, this concept was for the first time quantitatively verified by integrating a photocatalytic reactor in the collector of SCPP to realize the above two targets. A systematic numerical model was proposed to evaluate the performance of degradation of methane and the electricity generation of the SCPP-PCR. The results revealed that the methane purification rate decreased with increasing turbine rotational speed, but the photocatalytic efficiency improved. In this research, the start of the PCR was set at the entrance of the collector, and it was cost-effective to lay 40 m in the radial direction with an investment of $4587 (around 0.37% of the total investment of the system). The system could degrade 30 595.47 g of atmospheric methane and reduce CO2 emissions by 245.38 kg in the daytime in Wuhan. It was revealed that SCPP-PCR could be crucial for reducing greenhouse gas and limiting climate change.