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We commercialized a methane capture technology in ten years — here’s how

Lessons from launching a spin-off company: invest in collaborations and engineering, and protect intellectual property to speed up tech development.
By
  1. Guoping Hu

    1. Guoping Hu is a research associate at the University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia, and an honorary fellow at the University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia.

  2. Eric F. May

    1. Eric F. May is a professor at the University of Western Australia.

  3. Kevin Gang Li

    1. Kevin Gang Li is a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne.

Methane accounts for 16−20% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, and is more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (see Nature 596, 461; 2021). More than half of methane emissions come from human activities, including leaks from refineries, coal mines and landfill sites. We developed a material that removes methane from streams of mixed waste gases (see, for example, ref. 1).

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Nature 604, 242-245 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00999-3

References

  1. Li, G., May, E. F., Webley, P. A., Huang, S. H. & Chan, K. I. Method for gas separation. US Patent US20170348670A1 (2015).

  2. Rufford, T. E. et al. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 94–95, 123–154 (2012).

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  3. Peters, A. W., Howarth, A. J. & Farha, O. K. Nature 551, 433–434 (2017).

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  4. May, E. F. et al. Sep. Purif. Technol. 177, 161–175 (2017).

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  5. Hu, G. et al. Chem. Eng. J. 427, 130810 (2022).

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  6. Hu, G., Manning, M., Li, G., Xiao, Y. & Webley, P. A. A method for increasing concentration of easily adsorbed gas by pressure swing adsorption. China patent CN110354637B (2021; in Chinese).

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Competing Interests

G.H., E.F.M. and K.G.L. are shareholders and directors in Gas Capture Technologies, Pty., Ltd.

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