Sieves put a lid on greenhouse gas: "Scientists are about to test microscopic sieves that trap environmentally destructive greenhouse gases before they escape coal-fired power stations and refineries.

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The new gas separation technology can be fitted to existing power stations and petrochemical plants to produce hydrogen, a clean energy carrier, and capture carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that worsens global warming.

Brisbane and German scientists have teamed up in a $4.2 million project to build and test this technology.

The Queensland Government today announced it would contribute $1.05 million to the project under its Smart State National and International Research Alliances program.

The scientists working on the technology are from the Australian Research Council's (ARC) Centre for Functional Nanomaterials at The University of Queensland and a German industrial research institute, Forschungszentrum J�lich (FZJ).

Professor Max Lu, the Director of the ARC Centre for Functional Nanomaterials, said the technology involved pumping synthesis gas from coal through a metal-supported molecular sieve in a pressurised chamber.

Professor Lu said the nano sieve was coated with thin film of zirconium and titanium oxides which separated hydrogen from the greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

�The film we coat it in behaves like the sieve which has tiny nano-holes, one billionth of a metre, that allow the smaller hydrogen molecules to go through,� Professor Lu "