Research underway at Rochester Institute of Technology aims at finding a way to convert an abundant gas into a usable, low-cost fuel. A grant is funding the efforts of an RIT professor and his students to change methane with laser light.

Methane leaks from places where some organic matter decays: landfills, swamps, wetlands and even cows, which produce about 50 gallons of methane gas per day.

RIT Research Professor Roger Dube, of the Carlson Center for Imaging Science, said methane leaked along with the oil in the Gulf of Mexico. He said there are vast methane deposits under the world's oceans, a concern if the ocean temperatures rise. Dube said methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas, 20 times more powerful than CO2 in terms of trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Dube said, "Methane gas is trapped in frozen ice at the bottom of the ocean and if the ocean temperature rises just one degree due to global warming or whatever is happening, a lot of that ice will melt, methane will be released and it will just bubble up from the ocean floor and be released into the atmosphere."

A National Science Foundation grant is funding Dube's research into a unique approach to turn that methane into fuel. Researchers use a laser beam to shake up methane molecules and change them.

"So what we want to do is basically hit a resonance for the methane molecule, weaken the bond, do that for many of the molecules so that we have many of them with weaker bonds to allow them to combine and produce ethane, a longer chain hydrocarbon, pr propane."

Their challenge is finding the right wavelength. Most are familiar with the standard laser pointer which beams a red light. Dube's research focuses on the deep blue spectrum of laser light. Using this device, Dube's team found 75 wavelengths that make methane
molecules respond.

Dube can see evidence of that after the laser passes through the molecules in a vial. A computer records the reaction and graphs it.

Dube said they are seeing spikes, but they haven't identified the exact wavelength yet.

When the research is completed, he will submit a final report to the National Science Foundation and use that to apply for another grant to continue the research.