The insights of Mihri Ozkan, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Riverside, are featured this week in an online edition of CHEM, a highly respected scientific journal that showcases studies in chemistry and related disciplines that may help find solutions to the global challenges.

In the journal’s “Voices” segment, Ozkan describes the status of direct air capture, or DAC, technology in the United States. DAC is a promising technology that removes CO2 directly from the atmosphere and is expected to help counter global warming from CO2 emissions. Ozkan is one of six international experts featured in the segment.

This recognition came less than two months after Ozkan published a paper in CHEM that examined how some of the thinnest materials known to mankind – called MXene and MBene compounds – have the potential to absorb carbon dioxide molecules from the atmosphere.

Her previous publications on DAC technologies are among the most downloaded and cited in respected journals. They include another paper entitled the “Current status and pillars of direct air capture technologies,” published last year. 

Ozkan joined UCR in 2001 and has dedicated her career to developing green technologies to fight climate change and other environmental problems. Her research aims to develop industrial-scale, low-cost materials for energy storage with improved performance and environmental sustainability.