Article by Katharine Gammon, published on The Guardian on Nov 29th, 2024.
The Guardian: New powder that captures carbon could be ‘quantum leap’ for industry
The Guardian covers Prof. Yaghi’s new covalent organic framework material able to efficiently capture carbon from the air.
The carbon-capturing powder, pictured on Berkeley’s campus. Photograph: Zihui Zhou/University of California, Berkeley.
An innocuous yellow powder, created in a lab, could be a new way to combat the climate crisis by absorbing carbon from the air.
Just half a pound of the stuff may remove as much carbon dioxide as a tree can, according to early tests. Once the carbon is absorbed by the powder, it can be released into safe storage or be used in industrial processes, like carbonizing drinks.
“This really addresses a major problem in the tech field, and it gives an opportunity now for us to scale it up and start using it,” says Omar Yaghi, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley. It’s not the first material to absorb carbon, but “it’s a quantum leap ahead [of other compounds] in terms of the durability of the material”.
The powder is known as a covalent organic framework, with strong chemical bonds that pull gases out of the air. The material is both durable and porous, and can be used hundreds of times, making it superior to other materials used for carbon capture.
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