Curbing Climate Change
Funding Year: 2019
Research Areas: Climate
Regions: North America
Greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise. While policymakers have explored negative-emissions technologies for carbon dioxide, similar approaches for the second most dominant anthropogenic greenhouse gas, methane, remain unexplored.
This project will test the feasibility of oxidizing methane from bulk air using a material called zeolite. The crystalline material consists primarily of aluminum, silicon and oxygen. Because of its porous molecular structure, relatively large surface area and ability to host copper and iron, it could act essentially as a sponge to soak up methane. If successful at scale, the approach could restore methane concentrations to preindustrial levels and cut total radiative forcing by approximately one sixth.
Learn more about the Environmental Venture Projects grant program and other funded projects.
Principal Investigators:
Robert Jackson (Earth System Science)
Edward Solomon (Chemistry, SLAC Linear Accelerator Laboratory)
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