Capture, Storage, Conversion of CO2: Plasma as an emergent technology
Since the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere have exponentially increased due to human activity. The drastic increase in carbon dioxide emissions must be matched with an equally harsh response to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the form of carbon capture and storage (CCS). While the population and advancements in our society grew, it did so at the cost of adverse environmental impacts and subsequent global warming. The response to the ecological effects will have a price too – in the form of real investments – to capture the atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, with the Paris Agreement and developing new technologies, these costs can potentially be offset by trading carbon credits and converting carbon dioxide into valuable products.
Since the world is so reliant on fossil fuels, carbon dioxide capture from power plants is crucial to reducing our environmental impact (1). There are many demonstrated technologies for CCS, such as post- and pre-combustion capture, adsorption and stripping process, and membrane processes, but not without decreases inefficiencies and increases in costs. Traditional carbon capture methods, while new, capture the carbon dioxide in a gaseous form and therefore need a compression step, transportation offsite, and storage generally in the form of placement into below ground formations such as former oil and gas reservoirs. The storage of carbon dioxide can have potentially negative environmental impacts and is concerning if it becomes the norm in response to the climate crisis.Many technologies to date, as mentioned, produce concentrated carbon dioxide or pure carbon dioxide as a product with difficulties and concerns regarding storage. Emerging technologies look to address the concentration of carbon dioxide by converting it to different forms of carbon – either valuable or less valuable products. An example of a technology mainly demonstrated at the lab scale is non-thermal plasmas that can convert carbon dioxide energy-efficiently, which is a significant potential step towards improving CCS. Using non-thermal plasma, carbon dioxide can be used to produce carbonates or chemicals/fuels such as methanol and hydrocarbons.
The main barriers (2) for non-thermal plasmas conversion of carbon dioxide are:
Energy efficiency
Conversion Efficiency
Selectivity toward valuable compounds before scale-up and implementation
While non-thermal plasmas are regarded as energy-efficient, these technologies’ challenges are common across all emerging technologies for carbon dioxide conversion. As a result, increased funding, research, and focus on CCS are vital towards tackling the climate crisis and reaching net-zero global emissions of carbon dioxide.
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