Schlagwort: enhanced weathering

Peer-reviewed Publications

Rineau et al. (2026): Enhanced weathering leads to substantial C accrual on crop macrocosms

Francois Rineau, Alexander H. Frank, Jannis Groh, Kristof Grosjean, Arnaud Legout, Daniil I. Kolokolov, Michel Mench, Maria Moreno-Druet, Benoît Pollier, Virmantas Povilaitis, Johanna Pausch, Thomas Puetz, Tjalling Rooks, Peter Schröder, Wieslaw Szulc, Beata Rutkowska, Xander Swinnen, Sofie Thijs, Harry Vereecken, Janna V. Veselovskaya, Mwahija Zubery, Renaldas Žydelis, and Evelin Loit, IN: Biogeosciences, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-23-2261-2026

Enhanced weathering (EW) is proposed as a key strategy for climate change mitigation and carbon dioxide removal technology. Dissolution of silicate minerals enhances the alkalinity of the pore water, resulting at a shift of the carbonate system towards carbonate and bicarbonate, leading to higher dissolved inorganic carbon when the water is equilibrated with the atmosphere. Here, the authors evaluated the effects of EW on a crop ecosystem under future climate change conditions within a macro-scale ecotron – an enclosed facility enabling complete quantification of carbon fluxes among the atmosphere, vegetation, soil, and leachates. They monitored all greenhouse gases in deep mesocosms representative of marginal soil conditions and, after liming and fertilization, applied 10 t ha−1 of basalt at the start of the experiment.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Munir et al. (2026): Enhanced weathering for carbon dioxide removal: mechanistic advances, field evidence, and governance challenges

Bushra Munir, Seong Hyeon Nam, Byung Jun Park, Seok Soon Jeong, Jung-Hwan Yoon, Jinah Moon, Jae Yang and Hyuck Soo Kim, IN: Episodes, https://doi.org/10.18814/epiiugs/2026/026005

Achieving net-zero emissions will require scalable and durable carbon dioxide removal (CDR) alongside deep mitigation. Enhanced weathering (EW) has long been proposed as a land-based CDR option, but its real-world performance and governance readiness have remained uncertain. This review assesses whether EW has progressed from theoretical promise to a credible CDR pathway by synthesizing recent advances in field evidence, monitoring–reporting–verification (MRV), life-cycle performance, risk management, and policy frameworks.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Buma et al. (2026): Expert elicitation on agricultural enhanced weathering reveals carbon dioxide removal potential and uncertainties in loss pathways

Brian Buma, Christiana Dietzen, Doria R. Gordon, Kate Maher, Rebecca B. Neumann, Noah J. Planavsky, Tom Reershemius, Tim Jesper Suhrhoff, Sara Vicca, Bonnie G. Waring, Maya Almaraz, Salvatore Calabrese, Louis A. Derry, M. Granger Morgan, John Higgins, Benjamin Z. Houlton, Yoshiki Kanzaki, Alexandra Klemme, Tyler Kukla, Emily E. Oldfield, Ian M. Power, Christopher R. Pearce, Whendee L. Silver & Shuang Zhang, IN: Communications Earth & Environment, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03375-5

Enhanced weathering in agriculture is a potential gigatonne-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) pathway, but its potential remains difficult to constrain. The authors used a formal expert elicitation process to estimate CDR potential and efficiency, uncertainties, and key data needs for six feedstocks.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Zhuang et al. (2026): Manganese Oxide-Mediated Reactions with Olivine Dissolution Products: A Double-Edged Sword for Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement

Wen Zhuang, Feng Li, Tianqiang Zhu, Liwen Zheng, Minghao Zhu and Jihua Liu, IN: Environmental Science & Technology, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c16120

Olivine-based ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) is a promising carbon dioxide removal strategy, yet interactions with layered manganese oxides-ubiquitous minerals controlling trace metal biogeochemistry in marine sediments-remain poorly understood. The authors investigated these mechanisms using synthetic birnessite, a natural analogue of hexagonal layered Mn oxides, in controlled laboratory experiments in seawater under three scenarios reflecting different OAE deployment strategies: direct olivine-birnessite contact, exposure to simulated olivine leachate, and repeated alkaline inputs.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Chen et al. (2026): Sustainability analysis of basalt enhanced weathering in China under the carbon neutrality pathway

Xinyu Chen, Xuan Wang, Xiaoping Jia, Siqi Wang, Raymond R. Tan, Bohong Wang, Fang Wang, IN: Environmental Impact Assessment Review, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2026.108396

Enhanced weathering (EW) of basalt is a promising negative emission technology (NET) for carbon dioxide removal (CDR), yet its large-scale sustainability remains uncertain, particularly in energy-intensive economies like China. This work develops an environmentally extended input-output (EEIO) model to evaluate the economic and environmental impacts of basalt EW deployment under China’s carbon neutrality pathway. This framework integrates life-cycle emissions from mining, comminution, transportation, and cropland application, quantifying trade-offs between CDR potential and process-related carbon footprints.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Yip et al. (2026): Bacillus subtilis-mediated weathering of basalt revealed through sporulation

Christpher Yip, Kira Stonkevitch, Abigail Knecht, Philip D. Weyman, Tania Timmermann and Gonzalo A. Fuenzalida-Meriz, IN: CDRXiv, https://doi.org/10.70212/cdrxiv.2026480.v1

Silicate rock weathering is a naturally occurring process that provides a long-term sink for atmospheric CO₂, but its natural rates are too slow on human-relevant timescales to offset anthropogenic emissions. Microbial activity offers a potential mechanism for accelerating silicate mineral dissolution and subsequent CO₂ drawdown. Here, the authors investigated the role of Bacillus subtilis strains MP1 and MP2 in the weathering of basalt, a cation-bearing, silicate-rich rock. Incubation of basalt with MP1 or MP2 resulted in significantly increased levels of soluble calcium compared to uninoculated, abiotic controls.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Schiedung et al. (2026): Uncertainties of enhanced rock weathering for climate-change mitigation

Marcus Schiedung, Kirsty J. Harrington, Xavier Dupla, Benjamin Möller, Ennio Facq, Tim Sweere, Axel Don, Robert G. Hilton, Sebastian Doetterl and Jordon D. Hemingway, IN: Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-026-00761-7

Enhanced rock weathering (ERW) on agricultural soils is under consideration as a long-term carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategy. In this Perspective, the authors evaluate uncertainties related to ERW around feedstock availability, plant–soil system impacts, CDR efficiency along the land–ocean continuum and socio-economic considerations.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Kroeger et al. (2026): Analyzing Co-Benefits and Rock Sourcing in Life Cycle and Techno-Economic Assessment of Enhanced Rock Weathering

Jennifer Kroeger, Bingquan Zhang, Noah Planavsky and Yuan Yao, IN: Environmental Science & Technology, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c14334

Enhanced rock weathering (ERW) is a carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategy that stores atmospheric CO₂ permanently in carbonates. Recent ERW literature has highlighted potential co-benefits from cropland ERW application, including reduced fertilizer requirements and soil N₂O emissions. However, contributions of co-benefits to life cycle environmental impacts remain poorly understood, and methodologies for integrating them into environmental and cost assessments are lacking. The authors address these research gaps by integrating co-benefits into a coupled life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis to quantify environmental impacts and costs of ERW with and without co-benefits.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Anand et al. (2026): Soil Structure and Mixing Controls on Water-Rock Contact: Implications for Enhanced Weathering

Shashank Kumar Anand, Matteo Bertagni, Felipe Aburto and Salvatore Calabrese, IN: Water Resources Research, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025WR041479

Enhanced weathering (EW), the addition of finely ground silicate rock powder (RP) to soil, has emerged as a promising carbon removal strategy. However, quantifying weathering rates in soils remains challenging, as most continuum-scale EW models do not adequately account for the fraction of RP surface area (SA) that is wet at a given soil moisture and thus actively weathering. Here, the authors study how soil pore structure, RP particle size distribution, and RP mixing degree within the soil control water-rock contact. Using a soil-physics-based framework, they derive a scaling factor that quantifies the wet fraction of RP SA as a function of soil moisture and mixing degree within soil pores.

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Peer-reviewed Publications

te Pas et al. (2026): Enhanced weathering and biochar co-deployment boosts CO₂ sequestration through changing soil properties

Emily E.E.M. te Pas, Rob N.J. Comans, Sarai Bisseling and Mathilde Hagens, IN: Geoderma, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117668

Enhanced rock weathering (ERW) and biochar are potentially effective and scalable options for large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR), required to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 °C. Here the authors present experimental data on their co-deployment, an urgent and novel research direction that may render even larger CDR on multiple timescales.

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