It’s been clear for a while now that there’s too much carbon dioxide in
Earth’s atmosphere, heavily contributing to a warming planet, and now
scientists have come up with a new plan for dealing with all this excess CO2
­ converting it into plastic.

Plastic itself isn’t the most environmentally friendly of materials, but not
only would it mean that CO2 gets converted into something useful, it could
also reduce the need to produce plastics out of fossil fuels, giving us a
better chance of hitting targets for limiting climate change.

The new approach is the most efficient method yet that scientists have
devised for converting carbon dioxide into ethylene, the raw material used
to make the most commonly used plastic, polyethylene.

And it brings the possibility of a practical CO2-to-plastic conversion
system a whole lot closer.

“I think the future will be filled with technologies that make value out of
waste,” says lead researcher Phil De Luna, from the University of Toronto in
Canada.

“It’s exciting because we are working towards developing new and sustainable
ways to meet the energy demands of the future.”

The team used a technique involving X-ray spectroscopy and computer
modelling techniques at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) facility at the
University of Saskatchewan ­ analysing matter with electromagnetic radiation
to identify their key catalyst.

And it was thanks to a new piece of equipment developed by CLS senior
scientist Tom Regier that the researchers were able to study both the shape
and the chemical environment of the catalyst in real time.

“This has never been done before,” says one of the team, Rafael
Quintero-Bermudez, also from the University of Toronto. “This unique
measurement allowed us to explore a lot of research questions about how the
process takes place and how it can be engineered to improve.”

“This experiment could not have been performed anywhere else in the world,
and we are thrilled with the results,” adds De Luna.

The catalyst is necessary to power a carbon dioxide reduction reaction,
converting CO2 into other chemicals when it gets hit with an electrical
current. While many metals can act as catalysts, we already know that copper
is the only one that can produce ethylene.

The researchers worked out how to control the reaction so that ethylene
production was maximised, while waste products such as methane were kept to
a minimum.

“Copper is a bit of a magic metal,” says De Luna. “It’s magic because it can
make many different chemicals, like methane, ethylene, and ethanol, but
controlling what it makes is difficult.”

Armed with this new knowledge and a suitable carbon capture technology, we
could potentially remove CO2 from the atmosphere while producing plastics in
an environmentally friendly way at the same time.

To read the full story, visit
www.sciencealert.com/scientists-plan-to-recycle-waste-carbon-dioxide
-co2-into-plastic.

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