blog posts

• Scientists made plastic that eats carbon

  Oct 21, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: University of Copenhagen, 9/5/25

  A team of chemists has discovered how to transform PET plastic waste into BAETA, a material that captures CO2 with remarkable efficiency. Instead of ending up as microplastics in the environment, discarded bottles and textiles could become tools to combat climate change. The method is energy-friendly, scalable, and potentially lucrative, offering industries both sustainability and practicality.

• America is throwing away the minerals that could power its future

  Oct 8, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Colorado School of Mines, 9/18/25

  America already mines all the critical minerals it needs for energy, defense, and technology, but most are being wasted as mine tailings. Researchers discovered that minerals like cobalt, germanium, and rare earths are discarded in massive amounts, even though recovering just a fraction could eliminate U.S. dependence on imports. 

• This campaign will help you go electric before federal tax credits end

  Sep 26, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Canary Media, 9/2/25

  Electrification advocacy nonprofit Rewiring America recently launched the Save on Better Appliances campaign. It’s a nationwide effort to help homeowners and renters lock in the incentives — the Energy-Efficient Home Improvement Credit and the Residential Clean Energy Credit — before they’re gone. 

• AI’s ballooning energy consumption puts spotlight on data center efficiency

  Sep 25, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: The Conversation, 9/3/25

  A Georgia Tech computer engineering professor who specializes in high-performance computing explains how data centers can be designed and managed to reduce their energy use.

• Long-term biochar can sustainably boost crop yields and cut greenhouse gas emissions

  Sep 3, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Chinese Academy of Sciences (via Phys.org), 8/19/25

  A research team led by Profs. Yan Xiaoyuan and Xia Longlong from the Institute of Soil Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences showed that biochar can deliver lasting benefits for food security and climate mitigation when applied to farmland over the long term. In particular, the study showed that repeated annual applications not only sustain but also amplify biochar's positive effects on crop yield, soil health, and GHG reduction. 

  In this study, the researchers analyzed high-quality field experiment records from 438 studies, including consecutive annual data from 29 long-term field experiments. The results, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate that annual biochar application over four years or more increased global crop yields by an average of 10.8%, cut CH₄ emissions by 13.5% and N₂O emissions by 21.4%, and raised soil organic carbon (SOC) content by 52.5%.

• Data centers use massive energy and water. Here’s how to build them better

  Aug 29, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Fast Company, 8/11/25

  The race to build AI infrastructure is draining power grids and water supplies. But with the right innovation, tomorrow’s data centers could clean the air, grow food, and power entire communities.

• A dram good idea – turning whisky waste into sustainable packaging

  Aug 22, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: University of Dundee, 8/11/25

  Arbikie Distillery has partnered with Dr Dongyang Sun, Edinburgh Napier University, and Dr. Wenbin Zhou, University of Dundee, to use mycelium, the root structure of fungi, and distillery by-products like spent grain to create durable, lightweight packaging. The material created is impact-resistant, fire-retardant, and fully compostable, offering an eco-friendly alternative to plastic. Over the next 10 months, the project team will focus on proof of concept, testing the material, and the design. Funded by Scotland Beyond Net Zero – a coalition of leading climate and sustainability experts from Scotland's universities – this project is one of 11 new research collaborations aimed at accelerating Scotland's transition to net zero. Each project involves cross-sector collaborations to address sustainability challenges in energy, finance, food, the built environment, natural systems, and transport.

• The insulation that melts in your walls — and could reduce your energy costs

  Aug 15, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: NIST, 2/26/25

  Hidden in the walls of our homes, in the sides of our coffee cups, and even in the International Space Station, wherever humans go, we take some form of insulation with us to keep us at just the right temperature. But just because the idea is old doesn’t mean that there haven’t been innovations. Over the past few years, an entirely new category of insulation has made its way to the market. It’s called “phase change materials” (PCMs), and they control the temperature inside a room by melting and freezing over the course of a day.

• Solarcycle produces recycled glass test module with ‘peak performance’

  Aug 8, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: PV Tech, 8/4/25

  US solar PV recycling firm, Solarcycle, has produced a pilot module using 50% recycled glass from other decommissioned panels, which it says matches the performance of entirely new products. The company said that the "mini module", developed in partnership with Arizona State University's (ASU) Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, marks "a critical step toward a closed-loop solar manufacturing process."

• Industry eyes carbon credit gold in mining waste

  Aug 1, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Trellis, 6/13/25

  The billions of tons of mining waste stored worldwide contains minerals that react with and lock away CO2. A successful trial using waste heaps at a BHP mine in Australia is in the process of wrapping up. If the approach scales, it could lead to the creation of a new and relatively low-cost credit for durable carbon removal.

• New cooling tech could curb data centers’ rising energy demands

  Jul 23, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: University of California San Diego, 6/13/25

  As artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing continue to expand, the demand for data processing—and the heat it generates—is skyrocketing. Currently, cooling accounts for up to 40% of a data center’s total energy use. If trends continue, global energy use for cooling could more than double by 2030. Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new cooling technology that could significantly improve the energy efficiency of data centers and high-powered electronics. The technology features a specially engineered fiber membrane that passively removes heat through evaporation. It offers a promising alternative to traditional cooling systems like fans, heat sinks and liquid pumps. It could also reduce the water use associated with many current cooling systems.

  The advance is detailed in a paper published on June 13 in the journal Joule.

• Solving the mystery of an ancient enzyme could lead to new carbon capture strategies

  Jul 21, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 6/27/25

  Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have discovered important new clues in the mystery of how an ancient enzyme can turn atmospheric carbon into biomolecules, a natural process that could be helpful in developing new methods for converting greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into useful chemicals.

• Firefighting foams contain toxic PFAS. Could soybeans be the answer?

  Jul 15, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Grist, 6/23/25

  The search to find a PFAS-free firefighting foam is relatively new, as a growing body of research illuminates the harmful impact that these chemicals have on humans and the environment. Soybean farmers have presented their crop as a surprising solution to this problem. Although more research and development are needed to ensure soy-based firefighting foam holds up under the toughest circumstances, the product is catching the attention of local fire departments. 

• Waste to value: the 11 startups leading on carbon capture and utilization

  Jul 2, 2025 12:15 pm

  Source: World Economic Forum, 4/22/25

  Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) transforms CO₂ into valuable products and has particular value for hard-to-abate sectors aiming to decarbonize. The UpLink Carbon Capture and Utilization challenge is currently supporting 11 startups offering ways of utilizing CO2 that could play a role in industry decarbonization.

• Harvesting the untapped: Electrochemical capacitors transform CO₂ into usable energy

  Jul 1, 2025 12:15 pm

  Source: E+E Leader, 4/28/25

  Traditional carbon capture strategies focus on separating and storing CO₂ without addressing the significant energy losses inherent in the process. New research, however, demonstrates a novel pathway: recovering energy directly from CO₂ emissions using ionic liquid-based electrochemical capacitors.

• A building material that lives and stores carbon

  Jun 23, 2025 11:30 am

  Source: ETH Zurich, 6/21/25

  The idea seems futuristic: At ETH Zurich, various disciplines are working together to combine conventional materials with bacteria, algae and fungi. The common goal: to create living materials that acquire useful properties thanks to the metabolism of microorganisms – "such as the ability to bind CO₂ from the air by means of photosynthesis," says Mark Tibbitt, Professor of Macromolecular Engineering at ETH Zurich.

  An interdisciplinary research team led by Tibbitt has now turned this vision into reality: it has stably incorporated photosynthetic bacteria – known as cyanobacteria – into a printable gel and developed a material that is alive, grows and actively removes carbon from the air. The researchers recently presented their "photosynthetic living material" in a study in the journal Nature Communications.

• The CO2 Tree: The Potential for Carbon Dioxide Utilization Pathways

  Jun 18, 2025 9:00 am

  LeClerc, H. O., Erythropel, H. C., Backhaus, A., Lee, D. S., Judd, D. R., Paulsen, M. M., Ishii, M., Long, A., Ratjen, L., Gonsalves Bertho, G., Deetman, C., Du, Y., Lane, M. K. M., Petrovic, P. V., Champlin, A. T., Bordet, A., Kaeffer, N., Kemper, G., Zimmerman, J. B., … Anastas, P. T. (2025). The CO2 Tree: The Potential for Carbon Dioxide Utilization Pathways. ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, 13(1), 5–29. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.4c07582 [open access]
  
  Abstract: Among the most active areas of chemistry research today is that of carbon dioxide utilization: an area of research that was viewed as futile and commercially impractical not so long ago due to the energetic stability of the CO₂ molecule. The breakthroughs that largely began in earnest in the 1990s have accelerated and now make up a diverse and plentiful portfolio of technological and scientific advances and commercialized technologies. Here, “The CO₂ Tree” is presented as a tool to illustrate the breadth of potential products from CO₂ utilization and to communicate the potential of these chemical breakthroughs to address the greatest challenge that society faces today: climate change. It is intended to be useful for scientists, engineers, legislators, advocates, industrial decision-makers, policy makers, and the general public to know what is already possible today and what may be in the near future.

     

• Breakthrough in fuel cell recycling turns ‘forever chemicals’ into renewable resources

  May 29, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: University of Leicester, 5/2/25

  A new technique that uses soundwaves to separate materials for recycling could help prevent potentially harmful chemicals leaching into the environment.  Researchers at the University of Leicester have achieved a major milestone in fuel cell recycling, advancing techniques to efficiently separate valuable catalyst materials and fluorinated polymer membranes (PFAS) from catalyst-coated membranes (CCMs). 

• Electricity-generating bacteria may power future innovations

  May 12, 2025 9:00 am

  Source: Rice University, 5/1/25

  A team led by Rice University bioscientist  Caroline Ajo-Franklin has discovered how certain bacteria breathe by generating electricity, using a natural process that pushes electrons into their surroundings instead of breathing on oxygen. The findings, published in Cell last month, could enable new developments in clean energy and industrial biotechnology. 

• Carbon capture technology to produce clean fuel from air

  Apr 17, 2025 3:30 pm

  Source: University of Surrey, 4/3/25

  A unique carbon capture technology could offer a more cost-effective way to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and turn it into clean, synthetic fuel.
  

• Nanoscale tin catalyst discovery paves the way for sustainable CO2 conversion

  Mar 4, 2025 5:00 pm

  Source: University of Nottingham, 2/10/25

  Researchers have developed a sustainable catalyst that increases its activity during use while converting carbon dioxide (CO2) into valuable products. This discovery offers a blueprint for designing next-generation electrocatalysts.

• Campus microgrids with small modular reactors reduce carbon emissions

  Jan 16, 2025 4:00 pm

  Source: U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity, 1/13/25

  The Office of Electricity’s (OE’s) Microgrid Program recently concluded a scoping study of the campus microgrid at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a focus on integrating a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) into the generation mix. SMRs are advanced nuclear reactors that have a power capacity of up to 300 MW(e) per unit (about one-third the size of traditional nuclear power reactors). The nuclear power industry is rapidly innovating to meet the energy demands of a decarbonizing world.  Advanced technologies, such as SMRs, can be deployed as electricity producers on the grid or in tightly integrated energy systems, such as campus microgrids, to provide reliable, dispatchable carbon-free power.