Carbon Dioxide: Systems-Inspired Design on Recovery and Re-use

Organizer: Joseph Sabol, Principal-Consultant, Chemical Consultant

More than 35 Gt of carbon dioxide (10 Gt as carbon) from industrial processes is produced each year, with about half accumulating into the oceans and on land and about half retained in the atmosphere. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen from 280 ppm in 1800 to 410 ppm in 2019, with the majority coming from human-derived activity. Adverse consequences from lowering the pH of the oceans and warming the atmosphere from trapping infrared radiation are well documented and unabated release of carbon dioxide will exacerbate existing environmental concerns. Unless a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emission is met with world-wide acceptance, rising concentrations, including an increasing rate of emission, are inevitable. Proposals to treat carbon dioxide as waste and inject into deep wells are met with skepticism and daunting engineering challenges. Planting massive forests will take decades to make a significant impact in. In the spirit of “systems-inspired design” this symposium proposes to address viable industrial processes that can re-use “waste” carbon dioxide as a raw material into process streams. Speakers are sought to present concepts and practices that demonstrate viable scale-up processes that use carbon dioxide as a raw material and eliminate waste discharge into the atmosphere.