Wednesday, September 09, 2026

Electrochemical low‑concentration CO₂ capture and conversion: from catalyst design to electrolyzer engineering

SciOpen

Advances in Electrochemical Capture and Conversion of Low-Concentration CO2 — image:
Schematic overview of electrochemical low-concentration CO2 capture and conversion, highlighting integrated single and dual electrolytic cell capture–conversion systems, direct dilute CO2 electrolysis through local CO2 enrichment and impurity-tolerant catalyst design, and electrolyzer engineering strategies involving gas diffusion layers, flow-field design, and operating-condition optimization.
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Credit: Industrial Chemistry & Materials

Electrochemical CO2 reduction uses renewable electricity to convert CO2 into value-added fuels and chemicals, offering a promising route for carbon recycling. However, most current studies rely on high-purity CO2 feeds, while practical carbon sources such as industrial flue gas and air contain dilute CO2 together with impurities including O2, SOx, and NOx. Low CO2 concentrations limit mass transport and promote the competing hydrogen evolution reaction, while impurities may trigger side reactions or deactivate catalytic sites. A team of scientists has reviewed recent progress in the electrochemical capture and conversion of dilute CO2, outlining strategies to bring CO2 electrolysis closer to practical carbon sources. Their work is published in the journal Industrial Chemistry & Materials on July 15, 2026.

“One of the key challenges is to maintain sufficient CO2 availability at the active sites under dilute CO2 while minimizing the effects of competing reactions and impurities,” explains Ying Wang, a professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The researchers highlight two main approaches for utilizing dilute CO2. The first is integrated CO2 capture and conversion. In single electrolytic cell systems, captured carbon species are directly converted within the same device, while dual electrolytic cell systems separate CO2 capture from electrochemical conversion, allowing the two processes to be optimized independently.

The second route is the direct electrolysis of dilute CO2, which avoids a separate capture step but faces greater challenges in CO2 transport and impurity tolerance. Strategies such as porous catalyst structures, CO2-affinity functional groups, and wettability regulation can increase the local CO2 concentration near active sites and stabilize the gas-liquid-solid reaction interface.

Impurities in realistic gas streams present an additional challenge. O2 can compete for electrons through the oxygen reduction reaction, SOx may cause irreversible poisoning of catalytic sites, and NOx can undergo competing reduction reactions. Developing catalysts and interfaces that favor CO2 transport and conversion while suppressing these unwanted pathways is therefore important for direct flue-gas electrolysis.

The review also emphasizes that catalyst development alone is not sufficient. Gas diffusion layers, flow-field design, pressure, temperature, humidity, and electrolyte composition all influence reactant transport, product selectivity, and long-term stability.

“Dilute CO2 electrolysis is not simply a catalyst problem, but a system-level challenge,” says Professor Wang. “Catalyst design and electrolyzer engineering need to be considered together to achieve efficient and stable operation under realistic conditions.”

Looking ahead, the researchers identify several priorities, including multifunctional catalysts for CO2 enrichment and impurity tolerance, a better understanding of catalyst deactivation under mixed contaminants, operando measurement of local CO2 concentrations, and improved mass-transfer uniformity during electrolyzer scale-up. These advances could help enable selective, durable, and scalable electrochemical conversion of low-concentration CO2 from practical carbon sources.

The research team includes Birou Huang, Renzhong Zhang, Qian Lu, Weixing Wu, Zhuohan Chen, and Ying Wang from The Chinese University of Hong Kong; and Pratahdeep Gogoi and Yuguang C. Li from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.

This research is funded by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the 1+1+1 CUHK-CUHK(SZ)-GDSTC Joint Collaboration Fund.

DOI Link:

https://doi.org/10.1039/d6im00201c

About Industrial Chemistry & Materials

Industrial Chemistry & Materials is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary academic journal published by Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) with APCs currently waived. ICM publishes significant innovative research and major technological breakthroughs in all aspects of industrial chemistry and materials, especially the important innovation of the low-carbon chemical industry, energy, and functional materials. Check out the latest ICM news on the blog.

Journal

Industrial Chemistry and Materials

DOI

10.1039/d6im00201c

Article Title

Electrochemical low-concentration CO2 capture and conversion: from catalyst design to electrolyzer engineering

Public confidence in Fauci declines since spring, but still exceeds RFK Jr.

Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania

Confidence in custodians of public health: Fauci & RFK Jr. — image:
Source: Annenberg Public Policy Center's ASAPH (Annenberg Science and Public Health) surveys 2021-2026.
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Credit: Annenberg Public Policy Center

PHILADELPHIA — Americans’ confidence in Dr. Anthony Fauci as a source of trustworthy public health information declined over the four months from April to August 2026 in a survey conducted after he appeared before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee but declined to answer its questions, invoking his 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

Fauci, a former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), served as the public face of the U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Homeland Security Committee chair Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) has repeatedly said Fauci belongs in jail and has accused him of covering up the possibility that the pandemic originated with a lab leak in Wuhan, China. Paul has blamed Fauci for millions of pandemic-related deaths.

A nationally representative survey was conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania Aug. 4-17, 2026, following Fauci’s July 29 testimony before the congressional committee. The survey period included the day of, and after, the committee’s Aug. 6 vote to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer its questions.

Half in U.S. remain confident in Fauci, more than in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In the August survey of 1,904 empaneled U.S. adults, half (50%) say they are somewhat or very confident that Fauci provided the public with trustworthy information about matters concerning public health, a statistically significant decline of 5 percentage points from 55% in April 2026. Prior to April 2026, there had been no significant change in confidence in Fauci for over a year, with confidence fluctuating between 54% and 58% between February 2025 and April 2026.

By comparison, 38% of Americans in August 2026 say they are confident that Kennedy, the secretary of health and human services, is providing trustworthy information about public health, statistically unchanged from both April 2026 (37%) and February 2025 (38%). This leaves confidence in Fauci currently 12 percentage points higher than confidence in Kennedy, although the gap between them has narrowed since April 2026, when it was 18 points.

Data on confidence in Fauci from as far back as 2021 – when APPC first asked the question, but specifically about his guidance regarding Covid-19 – showed higher confidence levels, ranging from 71% to 63%. Fauci, head of NIAID since 1984, left government office at the end of 2022. By October 2023, 60% of Americans said they were confident that he was providing trustworthy information about matters concerning public health.

Confidence in healthcare providers remains high, but declines for health agencies

APPC survey data released last month shows that Americans’ confidence in their individual healthcare providers remains high, as compared with declining confidence in the major U.S. healthcare agencies, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The data, gathered as part of the same survey cited here, show that 87% of respondents are confident that their doctor, nurse, or other primary healthcare provider is providing trustworthy information about matters of public health, statistically unchanged from 88% in September 2024.

In contrast, in the August 2026 data, 61% express confidence in the CDC, 59% in the FDA, and 61% in the NIH, all of which declined significantly since September 2024. For additional details, see the news release: Public confidence in one’s own healthcare provider remains high.

About the survey

The latest Annenberg Science and Public Health (ASAPH) survey was conducted for the Annenberg Public Policy Center by SSRS, an independent research company. Interviews were conducted by web and telephone among a nationally representative probability sample drawn from the SSRS Opinion Panel. Data were weighted to represent the U.S. adult population.

The August 2026 survey, conducted August 4-17, 2026, among 1,904 U.S. adults, has an estimated margin of sampling error of ±3.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The April 2026 survey was conducted April 14-28, 2026, among 1,639 U.S. adults, with an estimated margin of sampling error ±3.5 percentage points.

For additional information, download the topline and methodology report.

The policy center has been tracking the American public’s knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors regarding vaccination, Covid-19, flu, RSV, and other consequential health issues through its Annenberg Science and Public Health (ASAPH) survey and other national samples since April 2021. The ASAPH and other health surveys are conducted under the auspices of APPC’s Annenberg Health and Risk Communication Institute (AHRCI) by a team that includes Patrick E. Jamieson, director of APPC’s Annenberg Health and Risk Communication Institute, which oversees the health surveys, Ken Winneg, APPC’s managing director of survey research, and APPC research analyst Laura A. Gibson.

See other recent Annenberg health survey news releases:

Confidence in healthcare providers: Public confidence in one’s own healthcare provider remains high (Aug. 31, 2026)
Banning glyphosate: Bipartisan majorities in U.S. favor banning glyphosate (Aug. 20, 2026)
Recommended vaccines during pregnancy: Most Americans are unsure which vaccines the CDC recommends during pregnancy (July 22, 2026)
Fluoridation of drinking water: Americans split on fluoridation; opposition by MAHA supporters notable (June 11, 2026)
Maternal health knowledge: Maternal health knowledge is strong, but gaps remain, survey finds (May 29, 2026)

The Annenberg Public Policy Center was established in 1993 to educate the public and policy makers about communication’s role in advancing public understanding of political, science, and health issues at the local, state, and federal levels.

Method of Research

Survey

Europe's forests are still standing, but many are losing the ability to recover

New eLTER policy brief calls for forest resilience to become a measurable objective of European policy, underpinned by long-term ecosystem observation

Pensoft Publishers

Long-term observations are what turn resilience from an appealing concept into something we can test and improve - says Giorgio Vacchiano of the University of Milan — image:
Instruments and infrastructure for long-term observation at an eLTER site
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Credit: Evgeni Dimitrov/eLTER

A forest can look intact from the roadside and still have lost much of its capacity to bounce back. That gap between appearance and function is at the centre of a new policy brief published by eLTER, the European research infrastructure for long-term ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological research.

Across Europe, the rate at which forests are damaged by drought, storms, wildfire and insect outbreaks has more than doubled over the past three decades, and climate-driven damage already costs several billion euros a year. Compound events, where drought is followed by fire or by pest outbreaks, magnify those losses and slow recovery further.

The brief, Forests at Risk: Measuring and Building Resilience Against Extreme Climate Events, argues that resilience should become an explicit and measurable objective of European forest management and policy rather than an aspiration that is assessed only after damage has occurred.

“Summer 2026 has made the issue tangible: prolonged heat and drought have stressed forests across much of Europe, while by late August wildfires had burned more than 630,000 hectares in the EU, roughly twice the 20-year average for this point in the season. However, resilience is not simply whether a forest is still standing after a disturbance. The question is whether forests can maintain their functions, regenerate and adapt as conditions change. If we do not measure those processes, we cannot manage them,” says Giorgio Vacchiano of the University of Milan, author of the policy brief.

The stakes reach well past timber. Extreme events put biodiversity, rural livelihoods and cultural landscapes at risk, and raise the likelihood of floods and landslides. Europe's forests currently absorb around 360 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, but that sink is weakening as stands age, harvesting intensifies and disturbances grow more frequent. Without adaptation, the brief warns, European climate targets become harder to meet.

Looking beyond area and biomass

Forest monitoring and reporting still concentrate largely on how much forest there is and how much biomass it holds. Those figures matter, but they say little about whether a stand can resist a shock, recover afterwards or adjust to a changing climate.

The brief calls instead for a broader set of resilience indicators covering recovery capacity, regeneration, structural and functional diversity, landscape connectivity, and the capacity of species to adapt or shift their range.

Satellite observation can supply early-warning signals before decline becomes visible on the ground. A drop in photosynthetic activity, for instance, can indicate that recovery is slowing and that a stand is approaching a critical threshold. Monitoring also needs to capture compound disturbances, which are becoming more common yet remain poorly represented in conventional assessment systems.

Paired with long-term field observation, scenario-based models can combine three dimensions of risk at once: the climate hazard, the vulnerability of the forest and its adaptive capacity. That allows policymakers and forest managers to test "what-if" futures and target intervention where it is most needed.

Building resilience in practice

The brief sets out management approaches that can strengthen resilience, among them Closer-to-Nature and Climate-Smart Forestry, greater diversity of tree species and forest structures, restoration of hydrological function, and carefully planned assisted migration of suitable species and provenances. Biodiversity is central throughout: complementary species and functions help forests absorb uncertainty while continuing to store carbon, regulate water and support livelihoods.

Five directions for action are recommended:

Mainstream climate-smart planning using resilience indicators and scenario modelling.
Introduce quantitative resilience targets into national forest, climate, adaptation and nature restoration strategies.
Invest in long-term observation and research infrastructures such as eLTER.
Support biodiversity-based and closer-to-nature management through payments for ecosystem services and well-designed nature credits.
Align forest management more closely with natural disturbance regimes to sustain resilience and carbon uptake.

At regional level, the brief points to fire-prevention planning in Tuscany and Lombardy, where climate projections, vegetation dynamics and fire-behaviour models are already used to prioritise areas for intervention.

Why long-term observation is the missing link

Resilience cannot be read off a single measurement or judged only after a disaster. It has to be observed across years and decades.

Through its distributed network of long-term research sites and socio-ecological platforms, eLTER tracks tree growth and mortality, soil moisture, carbon pools and water balance over exactly those timescales. Remote-sensing time series help flag early warnings, while sustained field observation supplies the evidence needed to calibrate models and to test whether management interventions genuinely improve resistance and recovery. Comparable observations from across Europe also make it possible to identify which approaches work, under which conditions and with which trade-offs.

“Long-term observations are what turn resilience from an appealing concept into something we can test and improve. They allow us to see whether recovery is slowing, whether a forest is approaching a threshold, and whether management is actually increasing its capacity to cope with future extremes”, Vacchiano adds.

Europe's forests will keep meeting climate shocks. The choice, the brief concludes, is between reacting after each damaging event and building the capacity to anticipate, absorb, recover and adapt.

Read the full policy brief: Forests at Risk: Measuring and Building Resilience Against Extreme Climate Events

A forest can still be standing while losing its capacity to recover

Credit

Evgeni Dimitrov/eLTER

Chemists unlock new possibilities for rare-earth metal

Researchers report method to isolate and separate terbium under non-lab conditions, potentially expanding its use

University of Iowa

Caged metal — image:
Chemists led by the University of Iowa have isolated the rare-earth metal terbium under normal environmental conditions, which could lead to greater uses. The illustration shows how the team devised a cagelike, molecular structure primarily composed of tungsten (gray) and oxygen atoms (red) that bound the terbium (brown), creating the conditions for the terbium atom to change its oxidation state and be separated.
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Credit: Korey Carter lab, University of Iowa

Chemists led by the University of Iowa in a new study report they have isolated and described in detail an atypical state of the rare-earth metal terbium, an advance that could expand its use, such as in quantum technologies that could include computing and advanced sensors.

Terbium, a silvery-gray metal mined primarily in China but also found in the United States and a few other countries, is central to a host of devices and technologies. The element underpins green phosphors, which are essential for televisions, fluorescent lamps and LED displays. It also plays a key role in solid-state devices, fuel cells, and has been used to improve the safety of medical X-rays by allowing the same quality image to be produced with a much shorter exposure time.

While useful, terbium comes with obstacles to its access and use. It is part of a group of elements called the lanthanides, a suite of metals that have nearly the same physical properties, which makes it challenging to separate them unless under rigid laboratory conditions.

The Iowa chemists, led by Korey Carter, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, and Pere Miro, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, sought a way to separate terbium under normal environmental conditions, which would make the process cheaper and easier, thus enabling the metal’s full range of properties to be explored.

To do that, he and his team devised a cage-like, molecular structure consisting of metal and oxygen atoms that bound the terbium and caused it to change its oxidation state –essentially yielding a new version that could be isolated and studied in detail.

It's a proof of concept that shows how terbium, and potentially other lanthanides, can be more efficiently separated from each other, opening up new avenues for how each of these rare-earth metals could be used more widely.

“One of challenges with lanthanides is they prefer to be in the same oxidation state, and it’s tricky to change that state and thus separate one from another without it being performed in a tightly controlled environment, such as a lab,” says Carter, the study’s co-corresponding author. “But we devised a method to isolate, or separate terbium, by changing its oxidation state in an environment that doesn’t require specialized lab controls.”

That could open terbium, like other rare-earth metals, for wider use. One area is quantum technology, the unseen world where atoms and other smaller constituents act in strange, hard-to-predict ways.

Among the potential applications there could be computing and advanced sensors in navigation, medical imaging, and other fields.

Terbium, like the other lanthanides, prefers to be in a plus-3 oxidation state, terminology that refers to the number of floating, or “free,” electrons orbiting the nucleus. Terbium’s properties in the plus-3 oxidation state – where it’s most stable – have been well documented, but its characteristics in other states have been little explored.

One of those under-explored areas is the plus-4 oxidation state, in which terbium would have an electron removed, changing its charge and in essence turning it into a new species. But like a stubborn person, terbium resists being transformed and only succumbs when forced.

“You can compel it to give away or accept an electron,” Carter explains, “but it's generally energetically unfavorable.”

Researchers have turned terbium into the plus-4 oxidation state, but they did so in rigorous air-free environments, according to Carter.

His team sought to lower the barriers by creating a molecular assembly of tungsten and oxygen, or polyoxometalate, and adding binding agents known as ligands. With the terbium atom sandwiched in these cages, the Iowa chemists added a chemical oxidant called potassium persulfate. That initiated a reaction that caused the terbium atom to lose an electron, change its oxidation state, and thus be isolated. Moreover, Carter’s team isolated terbium in ambient conditions, meaning in an environment that didn’t require special controls, such as temperature, humidity, or pressure.

“If you were in your house and you were setting up a chemistry experiment, it would be analogous to what we were doing in the lab,” he says.

The benefit to changing terbium’s chemistry in a normal environment could make it easier to access and potentially broaden its applications, such as in quantum technologies or through knowledge gained to separate other metals, Carter says. His group now wants to take what they learned with separating terbium to investigating actinides, a group of highly radioactive elements used in cancer-fighting treatments and devices, such as powering cardiac pacemakers in the body and smoke detectors.

“Our findings highlight the ability to do transformative research at the University of Iowa, and they provide a platform to extend the chemistry to the actinide series in UI Radiochemistry laboratories,” Carter says.

The study is titled “Structural and spectroscopic characterization of a Tb(IV) polyoxometalate.” It was published on July 16 in the journal Nature Communications.

Miro is a co-corresponding author on the study. Other co-corresponding authors are Benjamin Stein and Stosh Kozimor, from Los Alamos National Laboratory; and Jennifer Wacker, from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Contributing authors include Primadi Subintoro, Brett Lottes, S. Genevieve Duggan, Daniel Unruh, from Iowa; Felipe Pereiro, from Los Alamos and the Colorado School of Mines; Nolwenn Mahieu, Alexander Brown and Joshua Woods, from Lawrence Berkeley; Monica Mullis, Aldo Jordan, Cassandra Gates and Samuel Greer, from Los Alamos; Rebecca J. Abergel, from Lawrence Berkeley and the University of California-Berkeley; and Jenifer Shafer, from the Colorado School of Mines.

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.