![A team of scientists led by Xiaonan Shan [pictured], associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering, and Haotian Wang, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing, have discovered simple yet elegant solutions to address a fundamental issue in carbon capture and utilization technology: carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO 2RR).](/sites/ccoe.egr.uh.edu/files/images/news/2025/xiaonan-shan-march-2025-crop-01.jpg "A team of scientists led by Xiaonan Shan [pictured], associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering, and Haotian Wang, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing, have discovered simple yet elegant solutions to address a fundamental issue in carbon capture and utilization technology: carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO 2RR).")
Each year, billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels, certain industrial processes, construction and other human activities. This has contributed to a significant increase in the Earth’s temperature which is leading to a rise in natural disasters, elevated health risks and damage to our planet’s biodiversity. There is an urgent need to find better solutions to reduce the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
A team of scientists led by Xiaonan Shan, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering, and Haotian Wang, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing, have discovered simple yet elegant solutions to address a fundamental issue in carbon capture and utilization technology: carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO 2RR). The study was published recently in Nature Energy.
“This advancement paves the way for longer-lasting and more reliable (CO 2RR) systems, making the technology more practical for large-scale chemical manufacturing,” Shan said. “The improvements we developed are crucial for transitioning CO 2 electrolysis from laboratory setups to commercial applications for producing sustainable fuels and chemicals.”
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