X-raying rocks reveals their carbon-storing capacity

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🗞️ Driving the news: Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have used X-ray imaging to study how basalt rocks store carbon dioxide underground
• It reveals new insights into how carbon mineralization works during carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects

🔭 The context: Carbon mineralization involves injecting CO₂ into porous volcanic rocks such as basalt, where it reacts with minerals like calcium, magnesium, and iron to form solid carbonates
• Pilot projects, including the Iceland-based CarbFix initiative, have already demonstrated that over 95% of injected CO₂ can turn into stable rock within two years, suggesting a potentially permanent solution for large-scale carbon storage

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: The world will need to remove billions of tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere this century to limit global warming
• Understanding how underground rocks behave during mineralization helps ensure that carbon storage sites remain stable and effective over long periods, a key requirement for scaling up carbon capture technologies as part of global climate mitigation strategies

⏭️ What’s next: The MIT team’s findings suggest that even when mineral formation reduces rock permeability, underground reservoirs may still continue storing carbon over time
• Future research will likely focus on improving monitoring techniques, such as seismic sensors, to track how storage reservoirs evolve during long-term CO₂ injection

💬 One quote: “Carbon mineralization seems like a promising avenue to permanently store large volumes of CO₂”

📈 One stat: Experiments showed rock permeability dropped by an order of magnitude within one day, while only about 5% of pore space filled with minerals over the study period

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