A recent discovery has been made in the aspect of turning harmful CO2 into natural gas. As many people know, CO2 is the primary greenhouse gas that is released into our atmosphere and causes extreme damage concerning climate change, and is almost entirely produced by humans. In order for our environment to replenish itself and get back to a sustainable state, we need less carbon dioxide. This is why the research from professor Marc Koper, and PhD student Jing Shen is so important, it deals with a pressing issue that is going on in our world today. They figured out that if you pass CO2 through an acidic solution, a chemical reaction happens to change it to a natural gas. Although at first the acid would also create unwanted hydrogen, they found the correct amount of acid to use after many trials. Another benefit of this conversion method is that it is very affordable. The catalyst uses common materials such as Cobalt Porphyrin, which can be found in the vitamin B12, and graphite that is similar to the pencil lead. Because the materials are inexpensive, this would allow for many people to start using this catalyst to decrease the CO2 emissions. It is also believed that we can use solar energy to convert this CO2 into natural gas which would be an excellent added benefit to this sustainable discovery, with this type of thinking, our world is on the cusp of environmental change.
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AuthorHigh school student in pursuit of a career in Environmental Science Archives
March 2016
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