Review on Hydrotalcite-Derived Material from Waste Metal Dust, a Solid Adsorbent for CO₂ Capture: Challenges and Opportunities in South African Coal-Fired Thermal Plant

The main contributor to global warming is carbon dioxide (CO₂), herewith referred to as a greenhouse gas, with a growth of nearly 2.7%, 60% above that recorded around late twentieth century. Globally, the regulation and minimization of CO₂ have consequently become a consensus. In South Africa (SA), most CO₂ releases are from burning coal and future forecasts show that CO₂ releases will increase more and more should there be no counter-progress in the creation of carbon capture technologies (CCT). Additionally, by integrating CCT into the main sources of anthropogenic CO₂ releases, like coal power plants (CPPs), challenges of CO₂ releases will be brought to the barest minimal. Despite the challenge it presents, yet an inherent research opportunity therein, with possibility of developing a novel CCT. Hence, this paper presented a review on the theme “hydrotalcite-derived material from waste metal dust, a solid adsorbent for CO₂ capture: Challenges and opportunities in SA’s CPPs”. This theme was subdivided into the following sub-themes: challenges and opportunities inherent in SA’s CPPs; review of past and current publications on CO₂ capture from CPP. The conclusions reached are that the use of waste metal dust and/or coal fly ash to produce solid adsorbents will go a long way to saving significant cost of managing CO₂ emissions, while the conversion of this waste to product amongst other benefits will strengthen the goal of achieving a circular economy in the mining industry.