Earth is not getting cooler, and the carbon dioxide humans leaked into the atmosphere over the hundreds of years make things worse. How can we fix this? Scientists don’t think this is possible, because it means we have to somehow capture the CO2 from the atmosphere so that it has a CO2 level of under 400 parts per million. Without any intervention, it will continue to climb if we continue to burn up fossil fuel.
But can we fix this with a kind of reverse emissions technology? It should work, and along with planting more trees, we could keep the temperatures under catastrophic levels.
The latest discovery also brings hope. According to Advocator, there is a naturally occurring mineral that will crystalize and capture CO2 in the process. However, in nature, the mineral called magnesite need hundreds of years to develop.
Trent University Research Team Creates Magnesite in 72 Days
This is where scientists at Trent University in Canada step in, claiming that they found a way to speed up the production of magnesite. Professor Ian Power explained their findings at the recent Goldschmidt Conference in Boston:
“[Magnesite formation] is a process which takes hundreds to thousands of years in nature at Earth’s surface. [What] we have done is to demonstrate a pathway which speeds this process up dramatically.”
By dramatically, they mean that it was lowered from hundreds or thousands of years to just 72 days!
What’s more important is that the process can happen at room temperature, making it not only faster but also energy efficient.
Researchers used polystyrene microspheres to speed up the process, and these microspheres weren’t altered in the process of crystallization so that the team could use it multiple times.
Their next step is to scale up the process and find a way to trap CO2 and use it. It’s an experimental project, but a breakthrough in this field.
Doris’s passion for writing started to take shape in college where she was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Even though she ended up working in IT for more than 7 years, she’s now back to what he always enjoyed doing. With a true passion for technology, Doris mostly covers tech-related topics.