What Can We Do With Carbon Dioxide?

The amount of carbon dioxide in our environment has been escalating due to massive human activities and the lost of hectares of greenery forest. New research aimed at finding ways to use carbon dioxide to make fuels, plastics, and other products and materials could easily triple the amount of this key greenhouse gas put to practical use, rather than released into the atmosphere or simply captured and buried underground, according to an article scheduled for the April 30 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS's weekly news magazine.

In the article C&EN senior editor Stephen K. Ritter points out that the global chemical industry already uses about 115 million tons of CO₂ annually as a chemical feedstock, that is, as a raw material to manufacture other chemicals and products. Products routinely produced from CO₂ range from aspirin to fertilizer. Even a major scale-up in the industrial use of CO₂ would hardly put a dent in the emissions and buildup of this greenhouse gas, however. Since global CO₂ emissions (mainly from coal-fired electric power plants) total an estimated 24 billion tons, technology for capturing and storing the gas still are essential in a battle against global warming, the article explains.

Even with that proviso, Ritter points out that increased chemical industry use of CO₂ could be an important part of a multi-faceted program to control global warming. The article describes a wide range of research projects underway in academia and industry to find practical uses for CO₂. One process under investigation in the United Kingdom, for instance, focuses on converting CO₂ into formic acid, which could be used to power fuel cells for electric vehicles and a raw material to make other fuels. Another promising process, among many being developed in the United States, involves making polycarbonate plastics that contain up to 50 percent CO₂ by weight.

My two cent: From my previous research experience, carbon dioxide can be utilized as feed stock together with hydrogen to produce synthesis gas via a process called CO2 Reforming. A suitable metallic catalyst will be required in a reactor with temperature ranging about 300-500oC. I believe this research has great potential and we may benefit big time from it. Learn more about CO2 Reforming here.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by American Chemical Society and ScienceDaily

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