Skip to main content

Carbon Management Implications for R&D in the Chemical Sciences and Technology (2001) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:

5. Carbon Dioxide as a Feedstock
Pages 83-92

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 83...
... Yet sequestration dominates current thinking on short term solutions to global warming, as should be clear from reports of this and other workshops.4,5 The net anthropogenic increase of 13,000 million tons of carbon dioxide estimated to be added to the atmosphere annually at present can be compared to the 110 million tons of CO2 used to produce chemicals, chiefly urea (75 million tons of CO2) , salicylic acid, cyclic carbonates, and polycarbonates.1 Increased utilization of CO2 as a starting material is, however, highly desirable, because it is an inexpensive, nontoxic starting material.
Read the entire page →
From page 84...
... Many of these involve insertion of carbon dioxide into Y -- X bonds, often the C -- H bond. The products of interest include esters, carbamic esters, salicylic acid, and cyclic carbonates.
Read the entire page →
From page 85...
... Currently, supercritical carbon dioxide is used in caffeine extraction, dry cleaning, and parts degreasing. These processes can involve high-capacity plants of more than 22.5 × 106 kg per year in the case of decaffeination processes.8 Potential future or developing applications include utilization in food and pharmaceutical processing to defray future liability costs, production of pharmaceutical nanoparticles for injection, polymerizations,9 emulsion polymerization of water-soluble monomers, enhanced oil recovery, and homogeneous10 and phase-separable catalysis, including that based on ionic liquid solvents.11 REACTIVITY OF CARBON DIOXIDE Carbon dioxide is a linear molecule in which the oxygen atoms are weak Lewis (and Brønsted)
Read the entire page →
From page 86...
... irradiation of carbon dioxide yields oxygen and carbon monoxide. Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Fuels Direct Hydrogenation With abundant renewable energy sources, carbon dioxide can be converted to fuels by reduction to methanol or methane.
Read the entire page →
From page 87...
... Conversion of CO2 to fuels using renewable or nuclear power produces no net emission of carbon dioxide (excluding CO2 produced by energy consumption in the reduction process) , and it would complement the renewable production of fuels from biomass, which is likely to be insufficient to meet future world demands.
Read the entire page →
From page 88...
... .13 Electrochemical Reduction As noted earlier, direct electroreduction is achieved at high overvoltage. An unreactive metal or carbon electrode produces carbon dioxide radical anion, which may undergo dimerization to oxalate or disproportionation to carbon monoxide and carbonate.21 By contrast, non-innocent metals, through active sites on their surfaces, can direct CO2 reduction to hydrogenated products at a much lower applied voltage because of the high efficiency of the heterogeneous catalysis.
Read the entire page →
From page 89...
... Both reduction and oxidation processes generally require catalysis. For carbon dioxide reduction, a number of the catalysts used in electrochemical systems are also effective in photochemical systems, as outlined below.
Read the entire page →
From page 90...
... The challenge remains the effective development and deployment of water oxidation catalysts. At present, electrochemical reduction of CO2 yields carbon monoxide, formate, methane, and so forth, with good current efficiencies and, in photochemical systems, quantum yields of carbon monoxide (or formate or both)
Read the entire page →
From page 91...
... 1999. Greenhouse Gas Carbon Dioxide Mitigation.
Read the entire page →
From page 92...
... Pp. 118-140 in Mechanisms of the Electrochemical Reduction of Carbon Dioxide Catalyzed by Transition metal Complexes, Sullivan, B.P., K
Read the entire page →

Key Terms

  • electrochemical reduction
  • metal complexes
  • carbon monoxide
  • homogeneous catalysis
  • chemical conversions

  • mitigating carbon
  • methanol production
  • million tons
  • fuel production
  • starting material

  • radical anion
  • salicylic acid
  • dioxide reduction
  • surface science
  • energy sources

  • electron transfer
  • cyclic organic
  • dioxide adduct
  • protonated carbon
  • nucleophilic attacks

  • dioxide carbon
  • dioxide radical
  • cyclic carbonates
  • reduction chemistry
  • supercritical carbon

  • renewable production
  • sequestration dominates
  • solar thermal
  • photoinduced electron
  • dioxide pressure


    • This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
    More information on Chapter Skim is available.