Environmental News Network - Researchers Invent “Methane Cleaner”: Could Become a Permanent Fixture in Cattle and Pig Barns

Details: By University of Copenhagen - Faculty of Science; 18.Dec

In a spectacular new study, researchers from the University of Copenhagen have used light and chlorine to eradicate low-concentration methane from air.

Julie Swatson

In a spectacular new study, researchers from the University of Copenhagen have used light and chlorine to eradicate low-concentration methane from air. The result gets us closer to being able to remove greenhouse gases from livestock housing, biogas production plants and wastewater treatment plants to benefit the climate. The research has just been published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has determined that reducing methane gas emissions will immediately reduce the rise in global temperatures. The gas is up to 85 times more potent of a greenhouse gas than CO2, and more than half of it is emitted by human sources, with cattle and fossil fuel production accounting for the largest share.

A unique new method developed by a research team at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Chemistry and spin-out company Ambient Carbon has succeeded in removing methane from air.

Photo Credit: borevina via Pixabay

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Researchers Invent “Methane Cleaner”: Could Become a Permanent Fixture in Cattle and Pig Barns