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NOVA researchers discover innovative process worldwide to achieve carbon neutrality

Study from ITQB NOVA and FCT NOVA researchers may be the key to solving one of the biggest challenges to the planet's sustainability.

A team of scientists from the NOVA Institute of Chemical and Biological Technology (ITQB NOVA) and the UCIBIO research unit at the NOVA School of Science and Technology (FCT NOVA) discovered an innovative protein with the ability to reduce carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Researchers Inês Cardoso Pereira and Rita Oliveira (ITQB NOVA) and Maria João Romão and Cristiano Mota (UCIBIO - FCT NOVA) published a study in the scientific journal ACS Catalysis that indicates new ways to solve one of the biggest challenges for the planet's sustainability: carbon neutrality.

The CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere is at the highest level in human history, and several countries around the globe are committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. To achieve that goal, global greenhouse gas emissions must be balanced with carbon dioxide capture. The main natural carbon sinks are soil, forests, and oceans, but these are not enough to reach carbon neutrality. It is crucial to find new catalysts, which can enable the reduction of CO2 into valuable compounds.

À esquerda, as investigadoras do ITQB NOVA Inês Cardoso Pereira e Rita Oliveira. À direita, os investigadores da UCIBIO Maria João Romão e Cristiano Mota
On the left, ITQB NOVA researcher Inês Cardoso Pereira and Rita Oliveira.
On the left, UCIBIO researcher Maria João Romão and Cristiano Mota

In this study. researchers have focused on the biochemical strategies Nature has developed to convert CO2, in order to design more efficient and sustainable catalysts. The researchers looked at Desulfovibrio vulgaris, a common bacterium in soils and marine environments and in the human intestine. This type of bacterium employs enzymes that transform carbon dioxide into a chemical fuel equivalent to hydrogen called format. The bacteria studied by the NOVA team is especially active in this function of reducing carbon dioxide and is unusually stable even in the presence of oxygen. «These characteristics make this enzyme an ideal model for the study of this mechanism and for the development of similar synthetic catalysts», explains UCIBIO researcher Maria João Romão

Inês Cardoso Pereira, from ITQB NOVA, adds: «Understanding the functioning of this biological process with billions of years can give us the key to develop new technologies that can reduce atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide».

The next step will be to modify the enzyme to improve it and be able to introduce it to the market.

Source: ITQB NOVA and UCIBIO - FCT NOVA


 

News articles (in Portuguese)

Expresso - Portugueses identificam funcionamento de bactéria que absorve CO2 e produz combustível

RTP Online - Investigadores da Nova identificam proteína que reduz Co2 na atmofera

TVI24 - Há uma nova esperança para reduzir o CO2 na atmosfera?

Sábado - Investigadores da Nova identificam proteína que reduz Co2 na atmofera