Methane is thesecond biggestgreenhouse gas contributor toclimate change.
Its also 84 times more potent than culprit number one, carbon dioxide.
Unsurprisingly, 60% of global emissions result from human activity.
While reducing methane emissions is key to tackling global warming, removing it from the air has proven challenging.
Thats because the gas can be burnt off from air when its concentration exceeds 4%.
However, the majority of human-caused emissions are below 0.1%.
This could be applied to livestock housing as well as biogas and wastewater treatment plants.
A large part of our methane emissions comes from millions of low-concentration point sources like cattle and pig barns.
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The team used chlorine and UV light to create a chain reaction of chemical compounds inside the chamber.
In the scientific study, weve proven that our reaction chamber can eliminate 58% of methane from air.
Todays livestock farms are high-tech facilities where ammonia is already removed from air.
As such, removing methane through existing air purification systems is an obvious solution, Johnson explained.
This is also the case for biogas and wastewater treatment plants.
The full study is published in the journalEnvironmental Research Letters.
Story byIoanna Lykiardopoulou
Ioanna is a writer at TNW.
With a background in the humanities, she has a soft spot for social impact-enabling technologies.
