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Methane Removal
Grantee Project

Iron Salt Atmospheric Methane Oxidation (ISAMO)

Research on advancing our understanding of existing atmospheric oxidation processes hypothesized to be naturally removing more atmospheric methane than previously studied

Matthew Johnson, Thomas Röckmann, Alfonso Saiz-Lopez, Natalie Mahowald, Peter Hess, Maarten van Herpen, Berend van de Kraats

January 2022

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December 2026

Project Summary

Saharan dust plume reaching Canary Islands, Madeira, Cabo Verde - February 16th, 2021. Enhanced natural colors - Suomi NPP VIIRS data through NASA Worldview, processed by Pierre Markuse

The project Iron Salt Atmospheric Methane Oxidation (ISAMO) brings together experts in atmospheric chemical mechanisms, laboratory experiments, field monitoring, and modeling to explore methane oxidation via chlorine atoms that is believed to occur naturally by the action of sunlight on particles containing iron as plumes of Saharan dust travel across the Atlantic ocean. Better understanding this existing natural process may yield a method for global atmospheric methane removal. There are still significant unknowns surrounding the safety, efficacy, appropriate conditions for, and governance of any such approach.

Team

Matthew S. Johnson is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, working with atmospheric chemistry and innovation. He has a Bachelor from Macalester College and a PhD from the California Institute of Technology for spectroscopy of solvated ions in a molecular beam. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to work at the MAX-Lab Synchrotron in Lund Sweden on the spectroscopy of stratospheric ozone depletion. He is co-author of 151 peer-reviewed publications, 12 patents, and the textbook Chemistry and the Environment (Cambridge University Press). He has been the principal supervisor for 12 Postdoc, 14 PhD, 79 MSc, and 41 BSc research projects and was elected 'Teacher of the Year' by the students. He has a role as founder, CSO, CEO in multiple startup companies including Infuser, Airlabs, Airscape, Rensair, Devlabs, Luper Tech, and Ambient Carbon.

Thomas Röckmann is a leading specialist in the development and application of innovative isotope techniques to atmospheric research. His group operates a large and innovative atmospheric chemistry laboratory specialized in isotope ratio measurements on numerous trace species. His research covers a wide field of applications with isotope studies, e.g. global trace gas budgets, detailed kinetic isotope effects, impact of anthropogenic activities on the atmosphere or stratosphere-troposphere exchange.

After a PhD in Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of East Anglia (UK), Alfonso Saiz-Lopez spent five years working at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, and the National Centre for Atmospheric Research. He returned to Spain in 2009 to found the Department of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). His group´s multidisciplinary research combines experimental field measurements of present and past (ice cores) global atmospheric composition, quantum chemistry, and computational Earth system modeling to study atmospheric chemistry-climate interactions.

Professor Mahowald had positions at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) before joining Cornell as a faculty member in 2007. Her research group is focused on understanding feedbacks in the earth system that impact climate change. This includes global and regional scale atmospheric transport of biogeochemically important species such as desert dust, as well as the carbon cycle. They look at these issues through a combination of 3-dimensional global transport and climate models, as well as analysis of satellite and in situ data. She has served as a lead author on two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and is currently deputy Principal Investigator (PI) on the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Maarten van Herpen has a PhD in physics and a master’s degree in business innovation. He was the founder of Philips Africa Innovation Hub working with health innovation and served as the unit’s director for five years. Through the ISAMO consortium, he has made important scientific contributions to the field of atmospheric methane removal. van Herpen combines his technical and business background and has extensive experience in public-private collaboration. He is known for his many innovative ideas and entrepreneurial mindset, resulting in a large number of patents (>100 granted patents) and new business models. He served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for Social Innovation and is an alumnus of the Global Young Academy of Science.

As a former Submarine Captain, Berend van de Kraats understands that everything has limits except the potential of the crew. In 2019 he founded OceansX. This public benefit organization explores new ways to unlock our collective human potential in system overarching mission-oriented explorations.

Peter Hess is a Professor in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering. His research interests focus on understanding atmospheric chemistry within the context of the Earth's climate system. His work will advance understanding of how the chemistry and composition of the atmosphere may change over the 21st Century and help to prepare adaptive responses or mitigation strategies. These changes in atmospheric chemistry not only drive climate change but also directly threaten human health, agricultural productivity, and natural ecosystems.

Collaborators

Maersk, Smyrill Lines, Stolt, Aeroce Research Facility Barbados, Centra de Investigacion Atmosferica de Izana Tenerife, Instituto Nacional de Meteorologica e Geofisica Cabo Verde, and Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, OceansX provides logistical support and sample collection to support the ISAMO project.

Publications

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