Having finally received all the parts and materials, I built and tested my first “Cyan Lite”, which is the small box of Dahl’s original design without the larger box, fans, etc.
I followed Dahl’s instructions (Home · openair-collective/openair-cyan Wiki · GitHub) as closely as possible, with two exceptions:
- I used a different, smaller hummus container because we have not finished the Sabra hummus. This one has a lid diameter of about 4.75 in. vs. 6 in. for the Sabra.
- I used a different brand of Hydrated Lime, because I don’t have room to store a 10-pound bag. The composition should be similar.
The completed, operating Cyan box:
I started with 12.98g of hydrated lime, instead of the usual 10g (after I accidentally put too much in, I decided not to risk making a bigger mess by scooping some out).
I ran the “wet” part of the process for 15 hours. Then I shut off the pump, and moved the material and coffee filter to the top of the box to air dry. I ran a floor fan on low from a few feet away to create a gentle breeze, and periodically weighed the material. Here’s how it looked when it had fully dried:
I periodically weighed the paper and material until the weight reached a minimum, indicating that the powder was completely dry. This took about 13 hours. After that, the weight started increasing by very slight amounts as I watched for a total of 24 hours. Evidently, the chemical reaction was still proceeding, albeit slowly, even in a dry environment.
The final weight of the material (less filter) was 14.441g, which works out to an increase of 11.3% over the starting weight. Total CO2 captured was
(14.44g - 12.98g) * (1.693 g/g) = 2.47g.
The CO2 capture proportionally to the material supplied was slightly less than Dahl’s result, which I attribute to the fact that I used too much material, so it was piled deeper and provided less surface area.