Carbon dioxide storage in olivine basalts: Effect of ball milling process

Abstract The goal of this study is to propose a cost-effective method for the optimization of the ex situ carbonation of basaltic rocks. The ball milling process was applied to a sample of olivine basalt from the Troodos ophiolite complex (Cyprus) for the first time, in order to fabricate novel nanomaterials for CO 2 storage. The purpose was to accelerate the kinetics of rock–fluid reactions during the carbonation procedure. Various methodologies were used for the characterization of the starting rock material and the ball-milled samples. Preliminary results reveal that only a few hours of wet ball milling with ethanol as process control agent can induce significant changes to olivine basalt towards improvement of its performance for CO 2 storage. Specifically, CO 2 uptake measurements via the use of the temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) technique indicate that 4 h of ball milling with 50 wt.% ethanol can lead to an enhancement of the carbonation of olivine basalt by 295%. The experimental results strongly suggest that (i) olivine basalts have important CO 2 -storage capacity and are very promising lithotypes for ex situ carbonation, and (ii) the ball milling process provides hopes for its use at an industrial scale as a preparation technique for the safe and permanent ex situ storage of CO 2 .