Technology using chemicals that bind carbon dioxide already exists, but it's so expensive that using it on a large scale to suck CO₂ out of the air could increase energy demand—and the cost of energy—by at least one-third. On page of this week's issue of Science, however, researchers in the Netherlands report a new copper-based catalyst that can capture CO₂, convert it to a different form, and then release it with a small fraction of the energy other techniques require. The new method targets the step that so far has proved to be the Achilles' heel of air capture: prying the trapped CO₂ loose so the capture compound can be used again.

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REPORTS
Electrocatalytic CO₂ Conversion to Oxalate by a Copper Complex

Raja Angamuthu, Philip Byers, Martin Lutz, Anthony L. Spek, and Elisabeth Bouwman (15 January 2010)
Science 327 (5963), 313. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1177981]
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