To make new materials from waste CO2

Waste CO2 could be harnessed to produce useful materials - from furniture to trainer soles - using methods developed at Imperial College London. New research, published in ACS Catalysis , shows that waste carbon dioxide, captured from the emissions from a UK power station, can be used to produce polymers which are important in the production of materials called polyurethanes. The team, from the Department of Chemistry and Imperial spin-out company Econic Technologies, carried out experiments using carbon dioxide from Ferrybridge Power Station's carbon capture demonstrator plant in West Yorkshire. This plant, opened in 2011, is designed to capture some of the waste CO2 produced by the power station. Their results showed that using novel catalyst technology developed at Imperial, it was possible to use the waste CO2 to prepare a useful product. The team estimates that, for every tonne of CO2 used in their process, a further two tonnes of emissions could be saved by avoiding making the petrochemical-based raw material it displaces. The material produced using this carbon dioxide recycling is called a polycarbonate polyol.