Northwestern researchers discover a catalyst to remove carbon dioxide

Since raising more than $1 billion in research funding in fiscal year 2023, Northwestern researchers continue to produce findings from a range of studies. At the beginning of May, the Daily compiled a summary of NU’s latest research results.

A sugar-based catalyst that removes carbon dioxide

NU researchers recently discovered a new catalyst that has the ability to remove carbon dioxide gas from the air, the university announced on May 2.

The catalyst, consisting of a cheap, abundant metal and table sugar, converts carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, which can then be used in the production of multiple chemicals.

While carbon capture technology has advanced, the question of what to do with the captured supply still lingers. The finding adds to a developing carbon capture field that could help address global climate change and rising carbon emissions, according to a university news release.

“Even if we stopped emitting (carbon dioxide) now, our atmosphere would still have a surplus of (carbon dioxide) due to industrial activities over the past centuries,” said study co-leader and NU postdoctoral researcher Milad Khoshooei in the release. .

The success of the catalyst lies in the use of molybdenum carbide, a rough, durable ceramic material.

However, molybdenum must be converted into molybdenum carbide via a carbon source. The researchers came across an unexpected solution: standard sugar from their households.

“Every day I tried to synthesize these materials, I brought sugar from my home to the laboratory,” Khohooi said in the press release. “Compared to other classes of materials commonly used for catalysts, ours are incredibly cheap.”

The journal Science published the scientists’ findings on May 3.

Maps for predicting earthquakes are not effective

Although hazard maps are often used to predict earthquakes, seismologists often cannot determine how accurate these predictions are.

A group of NU researchers examined earthquake hazard maps from five countries and compared them with data from previous incidents. They found that all the maps overestimated the shaking intensities of earthquakes, the study’s lead author, geophysicist Leah Salditch (Weinberg ’22), said in a May 3 publication.

The scientists eventually realized that the problem traced back to the conversion equations applied to compare the hazard maps to shake data.

“We started this project ten years ago and thought there might be serious problems with the hazard maps,” says co-author and Earth and Planetary Sciences professor Seth Stein. “Now it seems there is no fundamental problem with them. Since the basic method looks good, we can expect these maps to be quite good and to get better as we learn more.

The journal Science Advances published the group’s findings on May 1.

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