SCIENTISTS have developed a new way of reducing global warming - using scrap metal and sea water from Whitby.

A team at the University of York have come up with a technology that could capture more than 850 million tonnes of unwanted carbon dioxide in the each year.

High levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are a major contributor to greenhouse gases and global warming and that overload is mainly the result of burning fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, as well as deforestation.

Global efforts are being made to reduce carbon dioxide levels as well as find novel ways of trapping excess gases from the atmosphere - and the York team have found a way to safely trap the gas as dawsonite, a solid mineral and natural component of the Earth’s crust.

Professor Michael North of the Department of Chemistry said: “We started with the realisation that using graphite, the material used in pencils, to line aluminium reactors, results in the mineralisation of carbon dioxide.

"We wanted to trap the gas at much higher levels, using low-energy processes, so we decided to look at waste materials, such as scrap metals, to see if this could be done without using chemical agents as a catalyst.”

Researchers filled the aluminium reactor with sea water taken from Whitby Bay, and waste aluminium such as that found in kitchen foil or food wrappings.

The gas is transferred to the sea water inside the reactor. Electricity, produced from solar panels, is passed through it, resulting in the aluminium turning the dissolved carbon dioxide into dawsonite.

Prof North said: “Tens of millions of tonnes of waste aluminium are not recycled each year, so why not put this to better use to improve our environment?

"The aluminium in this process can also be replaced by iron, another product that goes to waste in the millions of tonnes."

He added: "Using two of the most abundant metals in the Earth’s crust means this process is highly sustainable.”

Researchers are now working to maximise the energy efficiency of the process and allow the hydrogen by-product to be collected and used, before seeking to build toward full-scale production.

The work was published in the journal ChemSusChem.