Greenhouse gas could be used to help produce renewable biopolymers

(credit: Andrew Hart)

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is the most common greenhouse gas produced by the US. It enters the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, solid wastes, wood, and certain manufacturing processes. The growing abundance of CO₂ in the atmosphere makes it an attractive feedstock for commodity synthesis, which could reduce the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Though scientists have explored this concept before, few have had success due to the difficulty of breaking the carbon-oxygen bond and forming carbon-carbon bonds efficiently. The current approaches require high-energy reagents, which limit the reactions to low volumes, ultimately negating any environmental benefit of drawing down CO₂.

A team of scientists at Stanford recently published a successful route to using CO₂ to produce a highly desirable bio-based feedstock. This particular feedstock can be used to synthesize a renewable polymer that has the potential to replace a pervasive, fossil-fuel derived polymer, polyethylene terephthalate.

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