Don’t junk CO2, turn it into bottles and glue

IF HUMANITY is to avoid dangerous climate change, we need to capture hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide. But what to do with it all? There is no shortage of places to bury it (see main story), but we can at least put some of it to good use. A few start-up companies view CO2 as a resource rather than a waste product. They are using CO2 as the raw material for making products including superglue and fertiliser. Liquid Light of Monmouth Junction, New Jersey, showed off its prototype CO2 converter at the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit in Washington DC last week. About the length and width of a coffee table, and a few inches thick, the module is a layer cake of steel and plastic. Inside it are catalysts that can produce more than 60 carbon-based chemicals, from just CO2 and electricity. By linking many of these devices together, a chemical plant could convert CO2 into hundreds of thousands of tonnes of products in a year, says co-founder Kyle Teamey. Helping chemical companies switch –A prison for carbontheir feedstock to CO2 does more than boost their green credentials. “Almost all of their expenses are based on buying oil or natural gas or biomass,” says Teamey. So releasing it into the air is perverse. “It’s not just pollution, it’s actually losing the value of the stuff they bought in the first place.” Liquid Light’s first product will be ethylene glycol, the raw material for making polyester fibre, plastic bottles and antifreeze. Teamey estimates the process would trap 31 million tonnes of CO2 per year if the firm took over all global production. It would also avoid the emissions that current processes create, although that figure is not so clear-cut. The company has processes in the pipeline to make everything from superglue to Plexiglas. Liquid Light is not alone in looking at CO2 as a resource. Dioxide Materials of Champaign, Illinois, is a start-up spun out from the University of Illinois. It will focus on producing acetic acid, a chemical used to  make products like paint and glue. Dioxide Materials has partnered with 3M, the multinational firm that invented Post-It notes. 3M hopes to replace some of the expensive raw materials for its adhesive business. “The CO2 becomes the feedstock,” says Laura Nereng, 3M’s sustainability leader. “There are several materials we could make, but for us the most important area of interest is acrylic acid. It’s used to make adhesives, and 3M makes a lot of adhesive. Therefore it’s an important raw material to our.