Researchers in Japan have engineered a membrane with advanced features capable of removing harmful greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Their findings, published in the British journal Nature Communications, may one day contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions and cleaner skies.

 

Greenhouse gases, originating from industrial processes and the burning of fossil fuels, blanket the earth and are the culprits behind current global warming woes. The most abundant among them is carbon dioxide, which made up 84% of the United State's greenhouse gases in 2012, and can linger in Earth's atmosphere for up to thousands of years.

 

Countries all over the world are looking to reduce their carbon dioxide footprint. However, carbon dioxide is essentially a waste product with little immediate commercial value and large treatment costs. Therefore, new low-cost technologies are sorely needed to incentivize greenhouse gas capture by industry.

 

Easan Sivaniah — an associate professor at Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) — led an international team of researchers from iCeMS and the University of Cambridge to create an advanced membrane capable of rapidly separating gases.