Benchmarking the most promising CO2 Reuse technologies

Re-using CO2 emissions as an industrial feedstock has potential for widespread application and could be a powerful tool for climate change mitigation. A benchmarking assessment of established and potential CO2 reuse areas will support innovation in this sector.

With 34.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted over 2012, CO2 is one of the major contributors to anthropogenic climate change. Although carbon capture and storage (CCS) is already high on climate change mitigation agendas, unfortunately, less is being said about the utilisation of captured carbon or CO2 from other industrial sources (CDU). The primary advantage of CDU over only CCS is the ability to produce a saleable product, thereby using CO2 as an industrial feedstock for fuels, chemicals and materials. In this way, it has the potential to offset the cost of development of CO2 capture technologies, whereas CCS alone requires the application of strict penalties or economic support for uptake by industry. CDU might be considered as an added value as a part of the CCS value chain. Furthermore, the use of CO2 apart from CCS has the additional benefit of displacing some of the need for conventional oil and gas feedstocks, a key driver for chemicals companies.

While CO2 is already being used as an established feedstock in some commercial areas, there are many applications whose potential are yet to be fully explored, as well as some emerging technologies that are currently on the edge of being applied.