Insect tracheal systems as inspiration for carbon dioxide capture systems.

Membrane technology advancements within the past twenty years have provided a new perspective on environmentalism as engineers design membranes to separate greenhouse gasses from the environment. Several scientific journals have published articles of experimental evidence quantifying carbon dioxide (CO2), a common greenhouse gas, separation using membrane technology and ranking them against one another. On the other hand, natural systems such as the respiratory system of mammals also accomplish transmembrane transport of CO2. However, to our knowledge, a comparison of these natural organic systems with engineered membranes has not yet been accomplished. The tracheal respiratory systems of insects transport CO2 at the highest rates in the animal kingdom. Therefore, this work compares engineered membranes to the tracheal systems of insects by quantitatively comparing greenhouse gas conductance rates. We demonstrate that on a per unit volume basis, locusts can transport CO2 approximately ⁓100 times more effectively than the best current engineered systems. Given the same temperature conditions, insect tracheal systems transport CO2 three orders of magnitude faster on average. Miniaturization of CO2 capture systems based on insect tracheal system design has great potential for reducing cost and improving the capacities of industrial CO2 capture.