Climate change mitigation through chemical recycling of carbon emissions

What is it about?

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) from emissions mainly remains trapped in the atmosphere, or in the biosphere through massive carbon sinks in the form of vegetation or oceans. But CO₂ has a long atmospheric residence time and it continues to accumulate as other carbon sinks in the biosphere gradually saturate, further increasing atmospheric warming. Thus, technology to capture and recycle atmospheric CO₂ is now being increasingly explored as a means to decrease its accumulation and achieve a ‘zero carbon budget’, rather than ‘zero carbon emissions’, by maintaining an equilibrium between carbon release and capture. This book chapter describes CO₂ capture technologies using sustainable chemistry approaches. For instance, the captured carbon can be sequestered for energy storage or for cycling and conversion into chemical energy carriers and industrially useful organic compounds such as formic acid and methanol. Further, using renewable energy, such as solar energy, for the capture and conversion of CO₂, the process can be made highly sustainable. Solar fuels de-rived without the use of fossil fuels will help convert carbon emission waste into useful resources. Additional technologies that can extract CO₂ from the oceans and from sediments are also needed to achieve a complete closure of the carbon cycle.

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Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Renewable energy is a long-term sustainable solution to mitigating climate change. However, the detrimental effects of past and current emissions are likely irreversible and long-lasting. Moreover, adapting all technology to renewables will require significant time during which fossil fuels will need to continue to be used, further increasing global warming. Finding ways to capture and repurpose atmospheric CO₂, which forms a major proportion of atmospheric greenhouse gases, could be the best way to mitigate the climate crisis in the short term. KEY TAKEAWAY: A renewable energy driven, man-made carbon cycle can help us achieve a sustainable CO₂-carbon economy while we work to mitigate climate change in the long run.