blog posts

• 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.

• 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.

     

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

  Jun 27, 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.
  

• 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.   

• 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). 

• 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.