Stanford University chemists have developed a practical, low-cost way to permanently remove atmospheric carbon dioxide, the main driver of global warming and climate change.
The new process uses heat to transform common minerals into materials that spontaneously pull carbon from the atmosphere and permanently sequester it. These reactive materials can be produced in conventional kilns, like those used to make cement.
“The Earth has an inexhaustible supply of minerals that are capable of removing CO2 from the atmosphere, but they just don’t react fast enough on their own to counteract human greenhouse gas emissions,” said Matthew Kanan, a professor of chemistry in the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences and senior author of the Feb.19 study in Nature. “Our work solves this problem in a way that we think is uniquely scalable.”
Postdoctoral scholar Yuxuan Chen, left, holds some carbon dioxide-trapping material with Matt Kanan in their laboratory. (Photo Credit: Bill Rivard / Precourt Institute for Energy)
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