Headlines: Carbon Sequestration Finds a New Ally

March 14, 2014 – Turning the CO2 we pump into the air into a valuable product sounds like a pretty good idea. It certainly would make it attractive for emitters to ensure they captured the gas because there would be a market for it.

A new company, Liquid Light, may have an answer in the fight to reduce our global carbon footprint. The company has developed an electrochemical process that takes CO2 and converts it to turn it into chemicals and fuels. Based in New Jersey, the company’s technology uses low-energy catalytic electrochemistry to convert CO2 to industrial chemicals such as glycol, alcohol, olefins and organic acids. The technology can be installed at industrial sites where CO2 is emitted.

Recently the company demonstrated its electrocatalytic reaction cell for the production of ethylene glycol highlighting the economic and environmental advantages the technology brings to this $27 billion per year industry. Ethylene glycol today is used to manufacture plastic bottles, antifreeze and polyester.

The technology has the capability to produce more than 60 different chemical products using CO2 feedstock. British Petroleum is one of its investors.

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