Assessing various CO₂ utilization technologies: a brief comparative review

Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) utilization technologies have emerged as a promising approach to address the direct and indirect consequences of climate change and the need for sustainable resource management. Those innovative technologies aim to capture and utilize CO₂ by converting it into valuable products or directly using it as a chemical feedstock in various industries, thus, avoiding their release into the atmosphere. In this study, different CO₂ utilization pathways including CO₂ to chemicals and fuels, CO₂ to building materials, CO₂ to enhanced oil recovery (EOR), and CO₂ to bio-products are discussed in terms of their status ? economic, environmental and technology readiness level performances. Moreover, various CO₂ utilization pathways are comparatively analyzed considering their advantages and drawbacks, CO₂ uptake potentials, and overall climate benefits. According to the comparison results, photocatalytic and electrochemical reduction of CO₂ along with the bio-fixation of CO₂ are gaining more attention in the recent research and investigations, from the energy intensity and environmental point of view, whereas EOR remains dominant in terms of the scalability, maturity and economic benefits. However, limitations of EOR related to the capacity, life cycle and different geolocations, as well as the complexities of other mature approaches make room for emerging technologies to be more energy-effective and environmentally friendly. Overall, most of the promising CO₂ utilization techniques are either technologically immature or limited in scale to deploy globally. One of the main barriers to reusing CO₂ is associated with the high cost of CO₂ -based production and the low value of the CO₂ market.