Although it is less abundant than carbon dioxide, methane gas contributes disproportionately to global warming because it traps more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, due to its molecular structure. 'What to do with methane has been a longstanding problem,' says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and the senior author of the study. 'It's a source of carbon, and we want to keep it out of the atmosphere but also turn it into something useful.' Daniel Lundberg PhD '24 and MIT postdoc Jimin Kim are the lead authors of the study, which appears today in Nature Catalysis. Former postdoc Yu-Ming Tu and postdoc Cody Ritt also authors of the paper. Methane is produced by bacteria known as methanogens, which are often highly concentrated in landfills, swamps, and other sites of decaying biomass. Agriculture is a major source of methane, and methane gas is also generated as a byproduct of transporting, storing, and burning natural gas....
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