Carbon Dioxide- the Superhero Molecule of the 21st Century

Why is everyone expecting CO2 to save our planet?



CO2, a greenhouse gas that was once considered a villain has now become an uprising superhero, a hero on whom all of us are relying upon to save us and our planet.  Innovators and promoters of sustainable development, across the globe, are now trying to capture excess CO2 and turn it into meat, alcohol, concrete, fuel, plastics and whatnot. It seems nowadays everyone is trying to make everything out of CO2.  

How are they doing it?

A lot of research organizations and companies are building their sustainable production systems around a technology, generally referred as DAC- Direct Air Capture. This relatively new technology can be used to capture CO2 from atmosphere, diluted gasses and distributed sources of carbon via industrial processes.

To keep it short and simple, this carbon capturing system consists of 3 main elements- contacting area, solvent or sorbent and regeneration module. The contacting area facilitates airflow through the model and allows sorbent access to ambient air, increasing the absorption/ adsorption of CO2 molecules. These carbon dioxide molecules are then removed from solvent/sorbent through application of energy, while the regeneration module simultaneously regenerates the solvent/sorbent for re-use.

[This diagram has been taken from a review paper.]

This technology is in early commercial stages. In addition to DAC, other approaches that have been suggested to capture CO2 are Electrochemical CO2 Capturing and Ion-Exchange Resin method.

Food Companies using CO2 Capturing Systems

With growing global population, the demand for global food has also increased. That’s why, to ensure global food security, a lot of food startups have come up in the last few years and are working to develop food production systems using CO2 capturing techniques. With this development, they’ll be able to produce food that is sustainable and relatively environment friendly.

Here are the few examples of organizations and innovators who are capturing the culprit of global warming- CO2- and working on converting it into food products.

Air into alcohol

Vodka, a fairly tasteless and neutral spirit product, is made mainly from the fermentation and distillation of grains, potatoes, sugar beet, grapes or cassava- depending on the local availability and cost. But a U.S based team of innovators (Air Co.) has found a new way to make alcohol, without any grains or grapes. They have been working to develop an electrochemical conversion system that’ll allow them to make vodka from air.

How they do it? They split water into hydrogen and oxygen. They make this hydrogen react with carbon dioxide (that they have captured) under the influence of a catalyst.

Then it’s simple, CO2 + H2 = H2O + Alcohol (ethanol)

They then take this alcohol (ethanol) and distill it (using solar energy) to make vodka. They fill the bottles manually and are now selling them only in person. Since, this company is operating locally; its distribution CO2 emissions are very low.

Air into Meat

Companies like Air Protein are working to produce meat from air-made protein. They, like Solar Foods, are using single cell microorganisms to convert CO2 into protein.

In the system developed by them, these single celled microorganisms, called hydrogenotrophs, along with air elements (like CO2, O2 and nitrogen), water and mineral nutrients work together to create protein. This protein is said to be tasteless and it has the same amino acid profile as of animal protein.

Air into fish-food

Novonutrients, another startup, has developed a system where they take industrial waste CO2 and transform it into fish food protein using carbon removal technology.

Will it really work?

While it feels hopeful to know that so many companies are working to develop sustainable production systems, it is important to know that DAC will alone not be able to save us from climate change. The success of DAC depends on various other factors such as- market demand, consumer acceptability, and development of supporting technologies.

Comments

  1. Vedangi KunkikarMay 22, 2020

    Great work Seles. Glad to have come across your blog. Keep writing. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 18, 2020

    Hey I’m Martin Reed,if you are ready to get a loan contact.Mr Benjamin via email: lfdsloans@outlook.com ,WhatsApp:+1 989-394-3740 I’m giving credit to his Service .They grant me the sum 2,000,000.00 Euro. within 5 working days.Mr Benjamin work with  group investors into pure loan and debt financing at the  returns of 1.9% to pay off your bills or buy a home Or Increase your Business. please I advise everyone out there who are in need of loan and can be reliable, trusted and capable of repaying back at the due time of funds.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am heartily thankful to you for sharing this best knowledge. This information is helpful for everyone. So please always share this kind of knowledge. Thanks once again for sharing it. pls visit our website tag and test brisbane

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Developing animal free milk fat from yeast: Interview with Tomas Turner, CEO of Cultivated Biosciences

Developing UK's 1st Chilled Ready-To-Drink Vegan Tea Lattes