Rumpelstiltskin may have been able to spin straw into gold, but even he couldn't pull carbon fibers from thin air. Yet that's exactly what researchers at George Washington University have managed to do.

Led by Stuart Licht, researchers have created a solar-powered process that can turn carbon dioxide, a gas that contributes to climate change, into solid carbon nanofibers.

The process works like this: Solar power goes to two electrodes immersed in a mixture of a molten salt (in this case, lithium carbonate) and lithium oxide. Carbon dioxide from the air interacts with the lithium oxide and produces carbon nanofibers, along with more lithium carbonate and oxygen.

Licht hopes that the carbon nanofibers, which are incredibly strong and durable, could one day be used in a variety of applications from construction to creating better lithium-ion batteries. If it catches on, the process might eventually take enough CO2 out of the atmosphere to help slow down climate change.