rubisco

Sun powered carbon capture

June 30, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

As the world struggles to implement technologies and find the political will to reduce carbon emissions, there are also ongoing efforts to find ways to capture carbon from emitting sources and from the atmosphere itself. After capturing carbon dioxide, there is then the need to safely store it or make use of it.

Current methods for capturing and then releasing carbon dioxide are expensive and energy intensive. In fact, some methods even require the use of fossil fuels. Recently, researchers at Cornell University have developed a method for capturing carbon dioxide that is powered by sunlight.

The Cornell method mimics the mechanisms that plants use to store carbon which involves using sunlight to make a reactive enol molecule that grabs carbon dioxide.

Existing chemical-based carbon capture techniques make use of amines, which are organic ammonia-derived compounds that react selectively with carbon dioxide. But amines are not stable in the presence of oxygen and don’t last, which necessitates the energy-intensive production of more and more amines.

The Cornell method uses the same method that the plant enzyme RuBisCo uses in photosynthesis. It is based on an inexpensive sorbent material that is capable of a high rate of carbon capture.

The researchers tested the system using flue samples from Cornell’s Combined Heat and Power Building, an on-campus power plant that burns natural gas. The system was successful in isolating carbon dioxide.

Ultimately, they would like to stage the reaction on what looks like a solar panel, but one that would capture carbon instead of generating electricity.

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In a first, system uses sunlight to power carbon capture

Photo, posted August 8, 2015, courtesy of Holly Victoria Norval via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Engineering plants to consume more carbon dioxide

January 23, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The most abundant protein on the planet is an enzyme called ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, better known as RuBisCO. Its critical role in photosynthesis makes life as we know it on earth possible. What it does is convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the organic matter contained in plants.

Getting plants to take up more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is a key strategy for mitigating climate change. Planting lots of trees is one way to do it. Another is to get individual plants to capture more carbon dioxide.

Scientists at the University of Illinois have focused on getting plants to produce more RuBisCO which allows them to grow faster, consuming more carbon dioxide in the process.

Some plants are better than others at taking advantage of the earth’s rising carbon dioxide levels. Among these are food crops like corn, sugarcane, and sorghum. Such plants’ growth is not primarily limited by how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere but rather by how much RuBisCO is in their leaves. The Illinois scientists tweaked genes in corn and sorghum to produce plants containing more RuBisCO. Laboratory experiments on corn demonstrated faster corn growth. Recent outdoor field experiments on sorghum demonstrated a 16% boost in its growth rate.

Improving photosynthesis in this way is not only a potential strategy for increasing plants’ ability to combat climate change. It is also a way to cope with the world’s increasing demand for food by producing crops that can grow larger and more quickly.

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Scientists Engineer Crops to Consume More Carbon Dioxide

Photo, posted April 12, 2016, courtesy of K-State Research and Extension via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Hacking Photosynthesis

February 25, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

There is an enzyme known as RuBisCo that is involved in carbon fixation, the process plants use to convert carbon dioxide into sugar molecules. The RuBisCo molecule is inside the leaves of most plants and is probably the most abundant protein in the world.

RuBisCo picks up carbon dioxide from the air and uses energy from the sun to turn the carbon into sugar molecules. This process of photosynthesis is pretty much the foundation of life on Earth.

Wonderful as it is, the process is not perfect. RuBisCo is not very selective in grabbing molecules from the air. It picks up oxygen as well as CO₂ and it produces a toxic compound when it does that.

Plants operate a whole other complicated chemical process to deal with this toxic byproduct and uses up a lot of energy along the way, leaving less energy for making leaves or food that we can eat.

A research program at the University of Illinois called Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (or RIPE) has been trying to correct this problem; they have been trying to hack photosynthesis. And they may well have succeeded.

Using genetic modification on tobacco plants, they have shut down the existing detoxification process and set up a much more efficient new one. The result is super plants that grow faster and up to 40% bigger.

The next step is to get it to work on plants that people actually rely upon for food, like tomatoes, soybeans and black-eyed peas (which are a staple food crop in sub-Saharan Africa where food is scarce.)

It will be years before we know if the process can really produce more food and be safe, but it may end up leading to a major increase in crop productivity.

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Scientists Have ‘Hacked Photosynthesis’ In Search Of More Productive Crops

Photo, posted June 10, 2013, courtesy of Boon Hong Seto via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.