AMBER Researcher receives EPA Funding to transform bio-waste into graphene materials that capture carbon

21 June 2025

AMBER Researcher Professor Wolfgang Schmitt of Trinity College Dublin has received EPA Funding of €659,861 under the ‘Facilitating a Green and Circular Economy’ category for project ‘From Bio-waste to Porous Graphene Materials: Novel Absorbents for Advanced Atmospheric Carbon Capture’ which will transform bio-waste into graphene materials that capture carbon.

Prof. Schmitt thanked the EPA and said: “This EPA funding enables us to develop novel porous, carbon-based adsorbents for the efficient, cyclic capture and release of atmospheric CO₂. The project embodies the principles of a circular bioeconomy by transforming biowaste into high-value carbon materials for direct air capture (DAC) technologies. These advanced materials not only help remove existing atmospheric CO₂ but may also support the development of a circular carbon economy in Ireland by creating a pure, reusable carbon commodity.”

“The project also enables collaboration with Professor Jonathan Coleman and his team at the School of Physics, leveraging their pioneering methods for producing functionalised, porous 2D nanomaterials – such as graphene, from graphite sources.”

Professor Coleman, an AMBER Researcher also, his research interests include nanomaterials, carbon nanotubes, nanowires and two-dimensional (2D) nanosheets.