UCI chemist to lead Sloan Foundation-funded project to remove CO2 from emissions and air

Jenny Yang, UCI associate professor of chemistry, will use a $1.5 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to help develop methods for the capture and removal of carbon dioxide from flue gases emitted by fossil fuel plants and from air. The funding will support an interdisciplinary team – led by Yang – from UCI, UCLA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in its efforts to create new molecular compounds for electrochemical CO2 capture and concentration. Yang said this could help fossil fuel industries achieve net-zero carbon emissions. The researchers will also target direct air capture of carbon dioxide, devising negative-carbon technology to reduce atmospheric CO2. Yang said the concentrated carbon dioxide could be sequestered or recycled, ultimately mitigating the effects of climate change.