This technology Turns CO2 Into Plastic And Cloth At A Low Cost

Dhir Acharya - Nov 28, 2018

A team of researchers at Rutgers University has invented a new way to convert CO2 into carbon-based products like plastic and fabrics.

Global warming is mainly attributed to carbon dioxide gas emitted from vehicles and factories.

However, scientists at Rutgers University have found another ending for this harmful gas by turning it into resins, fabrics, plastics, as well as other products to consume.

Rutgers scientists brought this miracle to life by reversing an artificial photosynthesizing process.

The research was later published on the university website, in which they claimed besides enzymes, electro-catalysts are the first materials which are able to turn water and carbon dioxide into carbon blocks. The electrolyzer turns CO2 into carbon blocks, two of which are methylglyoxal (C3) and 2,3-furandiol (C4). We can use these building blocks to generate complex, useful products at an efficiency of 99 percent.

In the past, scientist managed to electrochemically turn carbon dioxide into ethanol, methanol, ethylene, and methane at pretty high yields. However, the process is not efficient and too expensive to implement in reality.

So, it is such an outstanding result compared to more expensive and less efficient work before.

Charles Dismukes, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology and Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology of Rutgers University, also the senior study author, said that this breakthrough is likely to open a new future where the pharmaceutical and chemical industries can produce items based carbon dioxide conversion.

In the study, researchers at Rutgers came up with a technique, in which they used five catalysts that are made of phosphorus and nickel to electrochemically convert water and carbon dioxide into a wide range of carbon-based products. This new technique appears to be economical since the catalysts are cheap and apparently available in nature.

The research team has got a patent for this new technique. Also, the scientists initiated a RenewCO2 with the aim to commercially implement this technology, as well as use the method to extract polymers at higher density for making plastic, fabric, and resins for pharmaceutical and other big industries.