The powder was designed to trap the greenhouse gas in its microscopic pores, then release it when it’s ready to be squirreled away someplace where it can’t contribute to global warming. In tests, the material was still in fine form after 100 such cycles, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

“It performs beautifully,” said Omar Yaghi, a reticular chemist at UC Berkeley and the study’s senior author. “Based on the stability and the behavior of the material right now, we think it will go to thousands of cycles.”