Issue 07 | Dec 2025
Forging New Frontiers
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Ice mixed with amino acids stores methane in minutes
A reusable, biodegradable ice material captures methane rapidly, paving the way for safer and cleaner storage of natural gas and biomethane.
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f you have ever cooked on a gas stove or seen a flame flicker to life with the turn of a knob, you have seen natural gas in action. Supplying that energy at scale, however, is far more complicated. Today, natural gas is mostly stored under high pressure or cooled into liquid at -162 °C — both methods that are energy-intensive and costly. An alternative approach, called solidified natural gas, locks methane inside an ice-like cage known as a hydrate. But in practice, these hydrates usually form far too slowly to be practical on a larger scale.
Graphic images in this newsletter were generated using AI and intended only as a visualisation of general concepts or ideas related to the research.