Oregon State to lead Department of Energy project to capture carbon dioxide from the air

Nyman’s team will explore how some transition metal complexes can react with air to remove the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. These complexes appear to extract an impressive amount of carbon dioxide – four CO₂ molecules taken up for every transition metal ion – and convert it to a stable solid, a metal carbonate similar to what is found in many naturally occurring minerals.

“What we’re doing is very exciting fundamental chemistry that can expand our understanding of the periodic table while also, hopefully, creating useful technologies,” Nyman said. “We’ll work towards understanding the mechanisms of the carbon capture, how to stabilize the molecules so we can store them until we need them and how to put them in their reactive form. Later we will exploit other properties of the transition metal to determine if we can convert the carbonate back into technologically useful molecules.”

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