We are reducing our carbon footprint to comply with the Paris Agreement, but one alternative is to develop technologies to combat climate change. Removal of existing carbon dioxideThere are numerous strategies from carbon dioxide mineralization to use. green hydrogeni.e. produced by renewable energy.
Main Strategies and Technologies for Climate Change
These are some of the technologies currently employed to mitigate global warming.
- Renewable energy
- ecological regeneration
- Atmospheric carbon dioxide capture
- biofuel
- ocean alkalinization
As you can see, a lot of effort is being put into using alternative energy and carbon capture methods. Carbon dioxide capture can be done in two ways.First, by direct means such as industrial processes such as mineralization and marine interventions. Alkalization technologySince the oceans are acidifying, the use of alkaline compounds such as calcium hydroxide could reverse the trend and increase carbon dioxide uptake capacity. Both include ecosystem and soil restoration. regenerative agriculture Promote biodiversity.
up to date IPCC report,this is Human Origin of Global Warming And the little time left in containment rise in temperatureindicating the need for a change in the energy model, but using new technological solutions Accelerate the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Removal of carbon dioxide by sunlight
One of the latest technologies in combating climate change comes from the field of photocatalysis. Instead of relying on methods such as carbon dioxide capture, it aims to break down existing gases or convert them into other products such as fuels or fertilizers.
Photocatalysts have been studied for years, but due to their low efficiency, they have not been viable as a large-scale alternative for carbon reduction.Fortunately, this Technology against climate change Added new materials such as MOF or nanotechnologywhich can make it a major competitor Decarbonizing the economy.
breaks down carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen
and Nagoya Institute of Technology In Japan, researchers are researching photocatalysts that are far more efficient than those known so far. carbon dioxide removal.
their research Science journal Nature, which focuses on the use of silver iodate.materials that have been needed much greater energy than visible light, which accounts for most of the solar radiation. Attempts have been made to combine with silver iodide To improve its efficiency, the industrial production process remained infeasible.
The solution proposed by Japanese scientists is Use of carbon nanotubes along with the two compounds above. In laboratory experiments, the photocatalyst was able to convert carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide.
The production of new composites is scalable and, according to its inventors, reduce industrial emissions and atmospheric carbon dioxide, using only renewable energy such as solar power. Who knows if future buildings will incorporate a layer of paint that can “eat up” greenhouse gases.
convert carbon dioxide into fuel
Another application of photocatalysts is their use in the production of fuels. in this case, methane gasA photocatalyst that treats carbon dioxide Replicate the photosynthetic processas the developer points out.
lead Hong Kong Universitythis project is MOFs,in short, organometallic materialsPrevious experiments in this field have used copper oxide. Industrial scalability and rapidly environmental degradationThus, researchers have applied a MOF coating that converts carbon dioxide to methane in a stable manner, doubling the efficiency of the process.
Methane is considered an environmentally friendly fuel, so in the future it will be possible for industries to use their carbon dioxide emissions to meet some of their energy needs.This is the so-called circular economywhich Aim for zero waste in production and consumption chains.
In short, photocatalysis is promising Technology against climate changeThey could also be important in the generation of green hydrogen, one of the renewable energy sources of the future.
sauce: Technology.org, eureka alert,