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Burning fuel releases a lot of carbon dioxide - far more
is emitted than any other air emission - what can we do with
it all?
A basic reuse of carbon dioxide - or CO2
- is to have plants and trees use it to make new plants and
trees. Recently, the US government has been funding more than
$100 million to six research projects that will turn carbon
dioxide into fuel, plastics, cement and more. Though the US
is spending some money, even more comes from private investors.
These projects are on the receiving end of $106 million from
the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act and had previously received
a round of funding from USDoE in 2009 as part of an initiative
to advance technologies and processes that can capture CO2
for storage or conversion to beneficial products.
The latest funding will help the construction and operation
of pilot plants for the projects, which are also being supported
with $156 million in private cost sharing.
Novomer
is trying to collect CO2 from four sites
and turn it into plastics that can be used to make packaging
- such as bottles, films, can coatings and surface applications.
Novomer expects the resulting plastics to be up to 50 percent,
CO2 by weight. The process is derived
from work by Cornell University, which centers on a catalyst
that converts carbon dioxide into a polymer that could be
used to make everyday items such as packaging, cups, and forks.
Several firms are working with systems that turn CO2
into carbonates. These include sodium, ammonium, potassium,
or calcium carbonates.
Calera's
focus is on carbonates that can be turned into construction
materials (cement) and will operate a building material production
system that turns the carbonate into construction fill or
cement ingredients.
Skyonic
and Alcoa
will turn CO2 into soluble bicarbonate
and carbonate, which can be turned into fertilizer and soil
amendments, in addition to construction materials. The carbonate
itself is not the fertilizer. Calcium carbonate, for example,
can be used to soil pH. Potassium carbonate helps supply the
potassium to the plant.
Touchstone
Laboratory and Phycal
are both using algae with captured CO2
to produce biofuels, which can be blended with other fuels
for power generation or turned into jet fuel, biodiesel and
other fuels. This is another variation of making more trees
and plants, but one that has a more immediate commercial use
in that it directly makes fuels.
Finally, CO2 by itself is useful -
in this case, the most common use is the carbonate of beverages.
So, CO2 has many potential new uses,
but new technology is required to take advantage of these
opportunities.
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