Passing carbon dioxide through slag left over from steel-making turns the waste product into a strong material that can be used for construction. Pumped into greenhouses, it provides a growing boost for crops. Put into tanks of algae, it can be used to make biofuels. Waste carbon dioxide can even be cleaned up to "food grade" and injected into fizzy drinks.
But these processes are rare – instead, carbon dioxide from power generation is normally simply vented into the atmosphere, where it contributes to global warming. When the gas is needed for an industrial process, it is manufactured from scratch.
Peter Styring, a professor at the University of Sheffield, wants to change this situation. He believes that carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) could be one of the best ways of combating climate change, by turning carbon dioxide from a waste gas into an integral part of industrial processes.
"There are real possibilities here that we are still only at the beginning of exploring," he said. "Some of the technology we need has already been developed, some is at an early stage, and in some cases we need to develop new chemistry."
There are a few examples of the development of processes to use CO2 like this. The US is spending $1bn on CCU research, including a project at Sandia Laboratories to make synthetic diesel from carbon dioxide, and the German government is putting €118m into a project with Bayer called the Dream production plan. In Australia, work is under way to manufacture cement using the carbon dioxide from power plants, and in several places around the world, algae is being cultivated that would absorb the gas and could itself then be used to make biofuels.
Styring is confident that many of the potential uses for carbon dioxide could make economic sense, with the right investment. In a report he co-authored, entitled Carbon Capture and Utilisation in the Green Economy, published by the Centre for Low Carbon Futures, he points to a case study by Newcastle University. There, a group of researchers have developed a new class of catalysts for the conversion of CO2 into commercially important cyclic carbonates, which can be used as electrolytes for lithium ion batteries; additives for petrol, diesel and aviation fuel; solvents; and in the production of polycarbonates and polyurethanes, and other commercial chemical processes.
Sources
But these processes are rare – instead, carbon dioxide from power generation is normally simply vented into the atmosphere, where it contributes to global warming. When the gas is needed for an industrial process, it is manufactured from scratch.
Peter Styring, a professor at the University of Sheffield, wants to change this situation. He believes that carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) could be one of the best ways of combating climate change, by turning carbon dioxide from a waste gas into an integral part of industrial processes.
"There are real possibilities here that we are still only at the beginning of exploring," he said. "Some of the technology we need has already been developed, some is at an early stage, and in some cases we need to develop new chemistry."
There are a few examples of the development of processes to use CO2 like this. The US is spending $1bn on CCU research, including a project at Sandia Laboratories to make synthetic diesel from carbon dioxide, and the German government is putting €118m into a project with Bayer called the Dream production plan. In Australia, work is under way to manufacture cement using the carbon dioxide from power plants, and in several places around the world, algae is being cultivated that would absorb the gas and could itself then be used to make biofuels.
Styring is confident that many of the potential uses for carbon dioxide could make economic sense, with the right investment. In a report he co-authored, entitled Carbon Capture and Utilisation in the Green Economy, published by the Centre for Low Carbon Futures, he points to a case study by Newcastle University. There, a group of researchers have developed a new class of catalysts for the conversion of CO2 into commercially important cyclic carbonates, which can be used as electrolytes for lithium ion batteries; additives for petrol, diesel and aviation fuel; solvents; and in the production of polycarbonates and polyurethanes, and other commercial chemical processes.
Sources
