A team of scientists have figured out how to turn CO2 into plastics, even going so far as to pull the gas from the atmosphere for production.
The team, led by University of Toronto’s Ted Sargent Group working in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley recently published their results this month in Nature Catalysis.
Using copper and a new technique designed by Tom Regier and exclusive to the Canadian Light Source (CLS) in Saskatoon, the researchers were able to identify the precise conditions needed to to turn CO2 in plastic.
Well, technically into ethylene, which is used to make polyethylene, which is the most commonly used plastic in the world.
The U of T team believes that this process can even succeed by drawing CO2 out of the atmosphere using carbon capture technology, reducing harmful emissions from our air while literally making value out of waste.
While we can’t turn CO2 into plastic, we can supply food- and beverage-grade carbon dioxide to your locations all across North America. We’d be happy to give you a free CO2 quote, here.
CLS is a massive science project that draws in thousands of scientists from all over the world to research health and agriculture. The technique used to perform these experiments to try to turn CO2 into plastic literally could not have been done anywhere else on the planet.
If you’re a science type, you can read all about the technique and parameters of the experiment here.
Sources: Canadian Light Source, University of Toronto