NANOPARTICLES POWERED BY LIGHT AIM TO REDUCE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY'S CARBON FOOTPRINT

The carbon footprint in the chemical industry is likely to reduce as engineers from Rice University have invented a light-powered nanoparticle to help the cause. They are tiny spheres of copper dotted with single atoms of ruthenium, is the prime ingredient in composing a green process for developing synthesis gas, commonly known as syngas, the valuable chemical feedstock generally used to make fertilizer, fuels, and many other products. Researchers from Rice, UCLA and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), describe the low-energy, low-temperature syngas production process this week in "Syngas can be made in many ways, but one of those, methane dry reforming, is increasingly important because the chemical inputs are methane and carbon dioxide, two potent and problematic greenhouse gases," said Rice chemist and engineer Naomi Halas, a co-corresponding author on the paper.