A new device captures greenhouse gases and pollutants from the atmosphere and produces electricity. The battery-like device produces enough power for small sensors and Bluetooth Internet-of-Things gizmos.
“This work introduces a simple, scalable, self-powered platform that integrates gas capture with electricity generation,” write researchers from Korea in the journal Energy & Environmental Science. They call the device a Gas Capture and Electricity Generator.
The idea of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is starting to slowly gain traction around the world, with dozens of commercial facilities already operating and many more being planned. However existing CCUS technologies face intrinsic challenges, the researchers say.
Conventional CCUS systems typically capture and then later release CO2 for storage or reuse under high temperatures and high pressures for reuse or long-term storage. The captured CO2 can be converted into carbon-based organic materials or synthetic fuels. But those conversion processes are also highly energy-intensive or require expensive noble-metal catalysts.
Plus, CCUS does not address any other greenhouse gases or toxic gases. So the team in Korea created a device that can capture both CO2 and nitrous oxide, the third-most potent greenhouse gas. Based on a fundamentally new mechanism, the device converts the energy generated when gas gets trapped on electrode surfaces into electrical energy.
To make the generator, the researchers started with mulberry paper, a soft, strong and sustainable handmade paper made from the bark of the mulberry tree. They coated the paper with soot-like carbon black powder. Then they dip this carbon-coated paper to coat it with a hydrogel on one half, and with an amine solution on the other.
The hydrogel, which is made of a polymer called polyacrylamide, selectively adsorbs nitrous oxide while the amine grabs and CO2. Hydrogen bonds form between the nitrous oxide and the hydrogel triggers a redistribution and movement of electrons. Meanwhile, the CO2 and amine react to create bicarbonate ions. The creation and movement of these charges generates a potential difference across the paper electrode, resulting in an electric current.
While the amount of electricity the gas battery produces is small, this is a promising proof-of-concept demonstration, and it should be fairly straightforward to connect several devices and allow the generation of higher power outputs, the researchers say.
“By integrating gas capture and electricity generation within a single self-powered platform, this approach provides a scalable, low-energy pathway for mitigating multiple GHGs and offers a promising strategy toward carbon neutrality,” they write.
Source: Tae Gwang Yun et al. Electrical power generation from asymmetric greenhouse gas capture, Energy & Environmental Science, 2026.
Image credit: Energy & Environmental Science, 2026, 19, 2149–2160, Eureka.
