Tiny Molecular Bowls Pull Carbon Dioxide Out of the Air
Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription, on Patreon, or on Stripe. Help us produce all of the high-quality, original content we publish week after week despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles.
[social_buttons]
The discovery of a tiny bowl-shaped molecule which collects carbon dioxide right out of the air has beckoned some creative solutions to global warming.
By genetically engineering microbes to manufacture the handy molecule, scientists hope to make it useful as an industrial absorbent for CO2 capture. That could help clean up smokestacks from dirty coal-fired power plants, but it’s also possible that the molecules could be used for pulling carbon dioxide right out of the ambient air.
The molecule was discovered by accident during research entirely unrelated to global warming. A researcher noticed that carbon dioxide was collecting in the molecule, and realized that the only source for the CO2 had to be the surrounding air. The results were then tested on a larger level using computer models, and the tiny molecular bowls showed promise on a practical level.
Though of course, while the molecules appeared efficient at capturing CO2, they did not dispose of it. Thus, any notion they may lend toward the possibility of “clean coal” would be misleading. Technology such as this should be viewed as an aid in cleaning up the mess that’s already been made, not as an excuse to continue producing energy through dirty means.
Source: ScienceDaily
Image Credit: Rennett Stowe on Flickr under a Creative Commons License
Sign up for CleanTechnica's Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott's in-depth analyses and high level summaries, sign up for our daily newsletter, and follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one on top stories of the week if daily is too frequent.
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
CleanTechnica's Comment Policy
