Seltzer water as the answer to global warming

Ever since the invention of carbonated water by Joseph Priestley and Torbern Bergman, people wanted to find new uses for this refreshing drink — uses that are unrelated to its primary function of actually providing refreshment (Russian-speaking readers of this blog might remember popular children’s fiction novels “Neznaika” of Nikolai Nosov where carbonated water was used to propel cars and rockets).

Now, everybody knows that carbonated water is obtained by dissolving carbon dioxide gas in water – the result is the formation of carbonic acid (chemical formula H₂CO₃) that effectively “traps” the carbon dioxide. It is also known that carbon dioxide is one of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases, whose overconcentration is not really good for this planet. Putting two and two together, researchers from the University of Leeds Stephanie Houston, Bruce Yardley, P. Craig Smalley, and Ian Collins proposed storing CO₂ in water that is being pumped into oil reservoirs to enhance the flow of oil. Read more about it here. Here is their published paper.

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