Planting seeds

Eric Nyquist

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Capturing carbon from water
Our atmosphere is full of carbon dioxide, but it’s surprisingly dilute, a problem for researchers trying to pull the gas out of the air and transform it into something useful, like fuels. The surface of water, however, absorbs and increases the concentration of carbon dioxide from the air, says Lea Winter ’15, a professor in the chemical and environmental engineering department. She and Sparkle Malone, a professor in the School of the Environment, received a seed grant to explore how to draw carbon from waterways like canals and lakes.

There are ways of getting carbon dioxide out of water, but they tend to involve a delicate, expensive membrane. Winter and Malone have developed a process that bypasses all that. “What we’ve come up with, it’s really exciting—it’s actually been working really well. It’s a new approach to how we do this,” says Winter. She has to stay vague for now—they are in the process of writing a paper about the work and will apply for a patent—but watch this space.