More than a third of the world’s electricity comes from coal-fired generating plants — and so does a hefty chunk of carbon emissions. WISE researcher Xiao-Yu Wu and his colleagues set out to make the process greener.

In the next-generation coal-fired plants, integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) is used to increase power output. High pressure and temperature is used to convert coal into syngas — a mix of carbon and hydrogen — that is burned to drive turbines. The more carbon you can…