An Ode to a Song

Climate change models from the IPCC assume we will be using significant carbon capture techniques in the near future. The problem is that we generally have nothing good to do with captured carbon, and it takes a lot of energy to capture it. It's not my field, but I can follow the problems to some extent.

Youngdong Song was a Korean exchange student in my research group the summer of 2018. He was a really chill guy, who was happy to tag along on some adventures while he was here. He joined our team for a chemistry soccer tournament, played on the Frisbee team for one game, and just generally chatted about Canada and Korea in the lab. He really enjoyed Canada, and I obviously have my history in Korea.

One thing that could be done with carbon dioxide is called dry reforming of methane. This contrasts with steam reforming, which we do a lot of right now to create hydrogen gas (a useful thing that we want). In steam reforming, however, you start with water and release carbon dioxide. Dry reforming is more promising for a carbon neutral future, but you need a good catalyst to lower the energy required for it. Right now the catalysts are really expensive and don't last very long. Not good.

During that summer, my buddy Aaron and I took Youngdong camping and hiking in Jasper National Park. It was one of my favourite hikes, but for Youngdong it was something brand new, and he's told both of us that it's his favourite memory of Canada. The mountain is steep early on, and I thought he might struggle, but after is legs realized what the day was going to be like he was fine. My favourite part was him climbing out of some fog, head down, just struggling to put one foot in front of the other. Then he got to a plateau and looked up, and for the first time you could see 10 kilometers in either direction down the valley. His face just lit up.

Last week Youngdong's research on a catalyst for dry reforming was published in Science. Not only the most prestigious journal in our field (or close), but probably my favourite. He was first author, too, so this is quite an achievement. The catalyst is made of earth abundant nickel, which is always the dream of a million catalyst researchers, and impossible to actually work. There are a lot of reasons why this should actually make a real impact on the world, and that warms my heart a bit.

So good job Youngdong, I'm proud of you. Thanks for coming to see me when I came through Korea, too. You're a cool dude.