Closing the Carbon Cycle

Abstract

The energy demand of the world can be fulfilled by burning fossil fuels such as natural gas, petroleum, and coal on a large scale. However, the burning of these energy resources produces a large amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is outpacing the natural carbon cycle and changes the natural environment. Recently, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has surpassed the four hundred parts per million marks. Despite producing much energy, these fossil fuel reserves are limited. We must capture carbon dioxide to get our environment neat and clean. For capturing carbon dioxide, various technologies such as adsorption on solids, separation of the membrane, and absorption into liquids could be utilized after knowing some parameters like the existence of impurities, temperature, the concentration of carbon dioxide, etc. The extracted carbon dioxide can be utilized for various applications such as the conversion of carbon dioxide into dimethyl ethanol, methanol, and hydrocarbons. There are various types of energy resources that we can utilize instead of carbon-emitting energy resources. By using such type of resources, we can make our environment neat and clean. While doing so, we can capture carbon more easily.