Carbon Cuppy: Bowl-Shaped Molecule Traps CO2

Many would agree that the best possible long-term solution to greenhouse gas emissions will involve our simply figuring out how to belch far less of it into the atmosphere.

Until then, research into means for the capture and sequestration of greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide in particular — proceeds in hope of providing interim relief. A University of Maryland chemist may have stumbled across a very small remedy for a very large challenge.

A complex molecule designed in his laboratory whose atomic arrangement renders it bowl-shaped displays the ability to attract and keep hold of carbon dioxide. While pursuing project work completely unrelated to the matter of greenhouse gases, J.A. Tossell learned that additional carbon dioxide molecules were altering the material he had been working with. Upon determining that the carbon dioxide was being pulled out of the air in the laboratory, Tossell realized that his surprise discovery has implications well beyond his initial focus.

Subsequent analysis of the compound suggests that it has ability to capture carbon dioxide not only in ambient atmospheric conditions, but may be appropriate for end-of-pipe applications at point sources as well.

Photo courtesy of nathan Alexander, via Wikimedia Commons.