Atmospheric Removal of Methane by enhancing the natural hydroxyl radical sink

Yuyin Wang, Tingzhen Ming, Wei Li, Qingchun Yuan, Renaud de Richter, Philip Davies, Sylvain Caillol

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Abstract

According to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), currently, global warming due to methane (CH4) alone is about 0.5°C while due to carbon dioxide (CO2) alone is about 0.75°C. As CH4 emissions will continue growing, in order to limit warming to 1.5˚C, some of the most effective strategies are rapidly reducing CH4 emissions and developing large scale CH4 removal methods. The aim of this review article is to summarise and propose possible methods for atmospheric CH4 removal, based on the hydroxyl radical (°OH), which is the principal natural sink of many gases in the atmosphere and on many water surfaces. Inspired by mechanisms of °OH generation in the atmosphere and observed or predicted enhancement of °OH by climate change and human activities, we proposed several methods to enhance the °OH sink by some physical means using water vapour and artificial UV radiation.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)784-795
JournalGreenhouse Gases: Science and Technology
Volume12
Issue number6
Early online date7 Nov 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2022, The Authors. Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology published by Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/], which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Funding Information:
This research was supported by the European Commission H2020 Marie S Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) award (Grant No. 871998), and the National Key Research and Development Plan (Key Special Project of Inter‐governmental National Scientific and Technological Innovation Cooperation, Grant No. 2019YFE0197500).

Keywords

  • Environmental Chemistry
  • Environmental Engineering

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