Carbon Dioxide

Greenhouse gases and plastic waste are two of the biggest environmental problems the world faces today. A new reactor from Cambridge tackles both at once, converting CO2 and used plastic bottles into useful materials, powered entirely by sunlight.

The way animals disperse seeds throughout landscapes is known to be an important element in promoting growth of forested areas, and a new study over an extended timeframe has shed valuable new light on this process.

Denmark is moving forward with Project Greensands, an initiative that will take huge quantities of captured carbon out to an oil rig in the North Sea, and pump it down to sequester it in the sandstone formations that once held oil and gas.

The James Webb Space Telescope has provided the most detailed look at an exoplanet atmosphere ever. Studying data from four instruments astronomers compiled a complete molecular and chemical profile of the planet, including signs of active chemistry.

Life on Earth has persisted for billions of years through many extreme climate events. MIT scientists have analyzed 66 million years of climate data and found a stabilizing mechanism for global temperatures that plays out on large timescales.

The US state of Wyoming is set to welcome the world’s largest direct air capture plant for the removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Called Project Bison, the facility is expected to suck up five million tons of CO2 each year by 2030.

Engineers at UIC have developed a device that can efficiently convert captured carbon dioxide into ethylene, a plastic precursor material. When run using renewable energy, the technique could make for net negative emissions in plastic production.

Even slight adjustments to how we make cement and concrete can have a big impact on their environmental footprint, and as research continues to show, scientists working in this space are not short of ideas.

The James Webb Space Telescope has clearly detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet for the first time. The find marks a milestone for the telescope’s goal of analyzing the air of distant planets to aid the search for alien life.

Leaves are impressive machines, converting sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into energy. Cambridge scientists have now created artificial leaves that can float on water, tapping into sunlight above it and water below to efficiently produce fuels.

In less than 18 months, Energy Dome has opened the first of its remarkable grid-level energy storage plants. These "CO2 batteries" store renewable energy over long periods and release it quickly, at less than half the cost of big lithium batteries.

Climate scientists have reported the highest levels of carbon dioxide ever recorded in the atmosphere. The latest in a series of record-breaking years saw levels 50 percent higher than pre-industrial times, a concentration not seen 4 million years.