https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-022-01226-w

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Document Type

Article

Abstract

Artificial ocean fertilization (AOF) aims to safely stimulate phytoplankton growth in the ocean and enhance carbon sequestration. AOF carbon sequestration efficiency appears lower than natural ocean fertilization processes due mainly to the low bioavailability of added nutrients, along with low export rates of AOF-produced biomass to the deep ocean. Here we explore the potential application of engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) to overcome these issues. Data from 123 studies show that some ENPs may enhance phytoplankton growth at concentrations below those likely to be toxic in marine ecosystems. ENPs may also increase bloom lifetime, boost phytoplankton aggregation and carbon export, and address secondary limiting factors in AOF. Life-cycle assessment and cost analyses suggest that net CO2 capture is possible for iron, SiO2 and Al2O3 ENPs with costs of 2–5 times that of conventional AOF, whereas boosting AOF efficiency by ENPs should substantially enhance net CO2 capture and reduce these costs. Therefore, ENP-based AOF can be an important component of the mitigation strategy to limit global warming.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-022-01226-w

Rights

© This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply 2022 This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

APA Citation

Babakhani, P., Phenrat, T., Baalousha, M., Soratana, K., Peacock, C. L., Twining, B. S., & Hochella, M. F. (2022). Potential use of engineered nanoparticles in ocean fertilization for large-scale atmospheric carbon dioxide removal. Nature Nanotechnology, 17(12), 1342–1351.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-022-01226-w

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