Researchers turn waste rubber gloves into CO2 capture materials

Aarhus, Denmark — Researchers at Aarhus University have developed a laboratory method to convert used nitrile rubber gloves into materials capable of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2), offering a potential route to reuse a major source of global medical waste.

The research, published in the journal CHEM, demonstrates how discarded gloves can be chemically transformed into “a CO2 adsorbent,” according to Simon Kildahl, postdoctoral researcher at the university’s Department of Chemistry.

The process, Kildahl explained, involves shredding the rubber glove into small pieces.

“It then reacts with a ruthenium-based catalyst and hydrogen gas, after which it can capture CO2 from simulated flue gas,” he added.

Once the material absorbs CO2, it can be heated to release the gas, allowing it to be either stored underground or used in industrial processes, while the regenerated material can capture CO2 again.

“In the real world, this could potentially take place at a power plant,” Kildahl said.

According to Aarhus University, every year more than 100 billion nitrile rubber gloves are produced globally, largely for use in the healthcare sector.

Most are discarded after a single use and typically end up in incineration or landfill, as they are not easily recyclable.

“In our experiments, we converted the glove so that it can capture CO2 instead of becoming a waste product that releases CO2 and other harmful gases during incineration,” Kildahl said.

The work forms part of research conducted within the Skydstrup Group at the Novo Nordisk Foundation CO2 research centre (CORC).

The collaboration, according to the university, is focused on technologies to capture CO2 or convert it into fuels through Power-to-X processes.

While there are CO2 capture processes already available in the market, the new process is significant as it uses ‘waste materials’ which would otherwise be burned or landfilled, according to the university.

“With the rubber glove, we can create a CO2 capture material where almost every atom in the product comes from waste, except for a small amount of hydrogen,” Kildahl said.

The process is currently being tested at laboratory scale, corresponding to technology readiness level (TRL) 3–4, with experiments carried out on gram-scale samples.

Scaling the process up will require further work, including reducing the cost of the catalyst used in the reaction.

“We are working on a gram scale right now, and reactions can look and behave differently when we scale up to kilograms,” Kildahl said. “But our results look very promising.”