WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Scientists at Wake Forest University have made a groundbreaking discovery with their new chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into usable chemicals or fuels.

The advisor for the experiment, Scott Geyer, said this is a big step in producing a carbon-neutral fuel - silver diphosphide.

Geyer said the fuels that they used took carbon dioxide out of the air and made more complex carbons that were useful as fuels, and they're making this process much faster and more efficient.

“What's really exciting about it to us is not just the result we have, but thinking forward a year or two years to things we can make next, and we already have a lot of exciting preliminary results, kind of taking the same idea and applying it to new systems.”

The Wake Forest team, consisting of students and graduates who are working in labs all across the country, is working to make more discoveries.