EurekAlert May 20, 2019
According to an international team of researchers (USA – Sanford University, Australia) some sources of methane emissions – from rice cultivation or cattle- may be very difficult or expensive to eliminate. An alternative is to offset these emissions via methane removal, so there is no net effect on warming the atmosphere. They argue that methane concentrations could be restored to pre-industrial levels by removing about 3.2 billion tons of the gas from the atmosphere and converting it into an amount of carbon dioxide equivalent to a few months of global industrial emissions. They describe a potential process for converting methane into carbon dioxide, which is a much less potent driver of global warming. Zeolites and other technologies should be evaluated and pursued for reducing methane concentrations in the atmosphere from 1,860 ppb to preindustrial levels of ~750 ppb…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
A conceptual drawing of an industrial array for converting methane (CH4) to carbon dioxide using catalytic materials called zeolites (CUII and FEIV). CREDIT: Jackson, et al. 2019 Nature Sustainability / Artist: Stan Coffman