Scientists believe CO2 removed from smokestack emissions could not only cut carbon emissions, but become a valuable raw material for the production of polycarbonate plastics used to make CDs and DVDs.
Two independent studies released this week at the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) national meeting in New Orleans described how polycarbonate plastics could be produced from CO2, raising the prospect of cheaper and more environmentally sustainable plastic products such as CDs, DVDs, lenses and bottles.
Professor Thomas Müller, an academic at Germany's RWTH Aachen University which is working with industrial giant Bayer on carbon capture research, said that it was possible to use captured CO2 as the starting point for the production of polycarbonate plastics.
He said that "new methodologies for activation of the chemically very inert molecule" would need to be developed to enable the carbon dioxide based synthesis of polycarbonates, but added that the plastic would represent an " intriguing sink" for captured CO2.
"Using CO2 to create polycarbonates might not solve the total carbon dioxide problem, but it could be a significant contribution," he said, adding that the development of plastic consumer products that also served as carbon sinks was just "a matter of a few years" away.
He also predicted that there would be a strong economic case for the adoption of such plastic production processes as CO2 would prove a cheaper raw material than current alternatives.
In a separate report, chemists from Japan also claimed they had used CO2 as an alternative feedstock to change carbonates and urethanes into plastics as well as battery components.
Most carbon capture projects are currently focusing on storing CO2 underground, but growing numbers of research projects are now investigating if the gas could instead be re-used in various chemical processes.
Earlier this year, UK start up Carbon 8 Systems announced it had developed a process for using captured CO2 in a chemical process designed to treat hazardous waste and create aggregate materials used by the construction industry.
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