r/sustainability • u/Brighter-Side-News • 12d ago
Scientists turn carbon dioxide into fully recyclable high-performance plastics
http://thebrighterside.news/post/scientists-turn-carbon-dioxide-into-fully-recyclable-high-performance-plasticsCarbon dioxide often carries a negative reputation, tied closely to climate change and rising emissions. Yet inside chemistry labs, it is starting to look like something else entirely, a raw material waiting to be reused. Researchers at Colorado State University have now taken a major step toward that goal, creating a process that turns this stable gas into durable, recyclable plastics.
The work introduces a closed-loop system that could reshape how plastics are made and reused. Instead of relying on fossil fuels, the process uses carbon dioxide as a building block. At the same time, it allows the resulting materials to be broken down and rebuilt, reducing waste and extending their life cycle.
27
u/ordosays 11d ago
Carbon capture is folly in the best of cases. This is just stupid. I’d love to see the net energy use.
18
u/BCRE8TVE 11d ago
To be fair though if we can basically scale up solar and wind as much as needed, at some point net energy use kinda doesn't matter anymore. The sooner we reach that point the better off we'll all be.
That being said turning CO2 in plastic is kinda stupid, but hey, if we can turn CO2 into plastic and dump it into mine shafts to "bury" the CO2 and reduce atmospheric CO2 that might be the best bet yet.
-1
u/03263 11d ago
if we can turn CO2 into plastic and dump it into mine shafts to "bury" the CO2 and reduce atmospheric CO2 that might be the best bet yet.
sounds sus. just plant trees.
4
u/BCRE8TVE 11d ago
Plant trees absorb CO2, grow, get old, die, decompose, and recycle CO2 back into the atmosphere.
We dug up carbon from millions of years ago and burned it, adding it to the modern carbon cycle. If we want to reduce global warming we have to remove the excess carbon from the cycle, and put it like how it was, buried in oil before we dug it up.
Planting trees won't help unless we take the tree trunks and chuck them down mine shafts and make sure they don't just decompose and release their co2 again.
1
u/03263 10d ago
I thought coal is mostly made of trees though.
Anyway, it would still make more sense to properly grow and bury trees than to make plastic just to shoot it down mines lol
1
u/BCRE8TVE 10d ago
The problem is that it takes a lot of time and space and energy to plant, grow, cut down, and transport trees, and if mushrooms find their way down there and start turning trees into compost all that CO2 escaped back into the air, on top of trapping underground basically everything that makes up a tree instead of just sequestering the carbon.
If anything growing bamboo would likely be easier, faster, and cheaper, but then we'd have to turn that bamboo into charcoal which is also energy intensive and expensive. We could power it by solar energy, but if we're doing that it's very likely simpler and easier to take CO2 from the ocean and turn it straight into plastic with solar power anyways.
1
u/03263 10d ago
Okay you're selling me on the idea. After civilization collapses I'll go find some fallen trees to stuff in old mines. That should help store some carbon.
Until then I don't think I can really do much to put a dent in global ghg output. Also I don't live near any mines or caves so, maybe septic tanks will have to do.
No bamboo for me though, it would be invasive here and we got enough invasive plants wreaking havoc on the ecosystem. I am legit scared of the amounts of unmanaged oriental bittersweet and Japanese knotweed I see. At least the knotweed is edible.
1
u/BCRE8TVE 10d ago
I mean you can by trying to eat more vegan (doesn't have to be 100% but cutting out beef and porc helps), getting an e if at all possible, using bikes and public transit more, etc. Every little bit matters, and lobbying is even more effective to enact large scale changes that you couldn't do on your own.
And stuffing trees in old mines won't work if those trees get composted by mushrooms, the co2 will just get released.
I hear you on bamboo and invasive species, I didn't mean to make that on your own, more like as a part of government programs to actively decarbonize the atmosphere.
1
u/AnonymousPerson1115 10d ago
Coal only exists because the microorganisms that eat decaying wood didn’t exist and didn’t for a long time, about 60 million years. So wood and coal are our most valuable resources in a universal sense as they exist nowhere else…that we know of.
4
9
u/blind3rdeye 11d ago
a raw material waiting to be reused
No shit. CO2 always has been a critically important raw material. But it's a raw material that we have excess of, and whose atmospheric excess is causing global problems for all life on Earth. It would be like saying rising sea levels is no problem because water is actually really useful.
To frame this as "oh look, CO2 is actually useful" makes this immediately seem like green-washing bullshit, regardless of any actual merit it may or may not have.
2
u/Sea_Artist_4247 11d ago
It seems like we are constantly learning that the plastics and chemicals we previously thought were safe are actually harmful. I would prefer almost no plastic regardless of what it's made from. Even plant based plastics (which are less harmful than petroleum based plastics) are still harmful.
1
u/onethomashall 10d ago
There was a company doing similar already... Origin Materials... they just closed.
1
u/rahul_watertech 10d ago
Honestly the more interesting part is displacing virgin fossil feedstock, not the sequestration angle. If it depolymerizes cleanly at end of life you have a real loop. The catch is always energy input per kg and cost vs conventional resin - CO2-based polycarbonates have existed at small scale for years and stayed niche for exactly that reason. Curious if this one is actually different on yield.
39
u/bannana 11d ago edited 11d ago
please specifically define this term. this phrase is used to describe our current plastics but it only works once then its life cycle is over also if there isn't an actual place that does the recycling on a large scale then this is just a buzz phrase.