World’s First Reactor Converts Oceanic Carbon Dioxide Into Biodegradable Plastic Feedstock

Chinese researchers have built an ocean carbon recycling system for capturing oceanic carbon dioxide and turning it into succinic acid, used to make biodegradable plastic.

The system extracted carbon dioxide from Shenzhen Bay’s seawater for more than 530 hours continuously, recording a 70% carbon capture efficiency.

The project was led by GAO Xiang and XIA Chuan from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, respectively.

This is the first time ever that a complete process of the same has been demonstrated, right from marine CO2 capture to creating chemical feedstock which is completely usable.

The cost was just 230 dollars per metric ton of CO2, rivalling the leading carbon capture technologies in the market today.

Firstly, seawater is sent to a 5-chamber electrochemical reactor, where the electric field triggers water splitting.

The protons acidify in one chamber while changing dissolved carbonate species into gaseous CO2, which is then separated through a hollow-fibre membrane and sent to a second reactor.

In the reactor, a bismuth-based catalyst reduces the CO2 into formic acid.

After this, a strain of the marine bacterium Vibrio natriegens ferments the formic acid into succinic acid.

The modular nature of this system means it can be reconfigured to produce several kinds of chemicals, including alanine, lactic acid etc, enabling the transformation of oceanic carbon into market-ready materials.

The system is not only useful for making plastics but could also be used to decrease the load on land-based methods to achieve the same.

It will help in upcycling Co2 to high-value products, which drive a low-carbon economy.

According to researchers, integrating the system with offshore renewable energy sources, like wind or tidal power, could make the process more efficient and sustainable.

Oceans absorb around one-third of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and this system could change its role from being a passive sink to an active participant in finding a solution to the climate problem.

Detailed findings from the study have been published in the journal Nature Catalysis.

Source: Maritime Shipping News