Making products from air

Scientists and innovators look for ways to turn carbon dioxide into useful products

Veteran shoe designer D’Wayne Edwards deletes many emails before he finishes reading them. Almost weekly, messages from people who swear their idea will revolutionize the footwear industry drop into his inbox. So, when he received an email from inventor Marcel Botha, touting a sneaker made from recycled carbon dioxide emissions, he deleted that one, too. But his interest was eventually piqued.

“I was impressed they could create an object pretty much from air,” said Edwards, who has designed for major shoe brands.

Botha’s creation, “The Shoe Without a Footprint,” uses captured CO2 as the building block for the sneaker’s foam. Independent power producer NRG Energy, which wanted to showcase the possibilities that lie in the ubiquitous greenhouse gas, tapped Botha to create the shoe and Edwards to consult on its design.

The shoe comes at an important time. It’s known that CO2 emissions from human activity are major drivers of climate change. CO2 is one of the most common greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere and drive up temperatures.

Last year was the hottest year on record and 2016 is on track to be even hotter. And scientists warn that CO2 emissions must decline if the risks of further climate change – everything from turbulent weather to rising sea levels – are to be avoided.

But what if the greenhouse gas could be recycled – much like plastic bottles and paper cups are – and turned into useful products? NRG hopes “The Shoe Without a Footprint” can stand as a symbol of innovation as the company sponsors the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, which seeks to inspire scientists and innovators to explore ways to transform CO2 into usable products.

Making a "Shoe Without a Footprint"

Searching For Solutions

To halt rising temperatures, much of the discussion around reducing CO2 emissions focuses on turning to cleaner forms of energy that emit less CO2 emissions, such as wind and solar power.

But by 2040, the International Energy Administration estimates three-quarters of the world’s energy supply will still come from fossil fuels in equal parts natural gas, coal and oil.

“Migration away from fossil fuels is going to take some time,” said Ben Trammell, NRG’s Senior Vice President of Engineering and Construction. “At NRG, we’ve embraced it as our responsibility to find solutions for limiting or even eliminating greenhouse gas generation.”

Lynda Clemmons, Vice President of NRG’s Business Solutions group, added: "We are not going to win the fight against climate change unless someone figures out how to capture and reuse carbon economically and turn it into something that society values.”

To remove CO2, the focus today has mostly been on capturing – and storing – the gas. Until now, most projects capture CO2 by cooling, liquefying and extracting it. The captured carbon is then typically stored underground and sometimes used for enhanced oil recovery.

“When it comes to carbon emissions, any day later is too late.”
Paul Bunje, Principal and Senior Scientist for Energy and the Environment at XPRIZE Foundation

But the more than 20 large projects worldwide meant to capture and store CO2 emissions have yet to produce a runaway economic success story. Because these projects can be expensive, oftentimes they’re not commercially viable.

If captured CO2 could be turned into usable materials and sold, rather than buried, it could create a new revenue stream while scrubbing carbon from power generation – the most common source of human CO2 emissions. That is the goal of the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, which will award $20 million to the teams that by 2020 can best develop breakthrough technologies to take CO2 emissions from smokestacks of coal- or gas-fired power plants and convert them into valuable products.

Paul Bunje, Principal and Senior Scientist for Energy and the Environment at XPRIZE Foundation, said the competition is important because something has to be done about CO2 emissions immediately.

“When it comes to carbon emissions, any day later is too late,” he said.

Historic CO2 Levels and Projected Increases

2100 2050 2000 1950 | | | | Concentration (ppmv) Years 800 – 600 – 400 – 200 – 0 – 1000 – Concentration (ppmv) 1950 2000 2050 2100 1000 – 500 – 0 – Years
  • Worst Case Scenario
  • Middle of the Road
  • Best Case Scenario
Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
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"Shoe without a footprint"

Pushing Innovation

The idea of converting CO2 into products isn’t completely new. Everything from the toys your children play with to the couch cushions in your living room could be made using CO2. And for decades, fertilizer has been made using CO2.

Moreover, more concentrated forms of CO2 from industrial processes, such as ethanol production, are used in various applications. These include dry ice used in food freezing and carbonation in beverages.

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A proprietary catalyst that reacts with CO2 was used to create polyurethane, which was then used to make the foam for the "The Shoe Without a Footprint."
A proprietary catalyst that reacts with CO2 was used to create polyurethane, which was then used to make the foam for the "The Shoe Without a Footprint."

The “Shoe Without a Footprint” is made using beverage-grade CO2. Novomer, a chemical technology startup, developed a proprietary catalyst that reacts with CO2 to create polyurethane, which was then used to make the foam for the shoe.

“For the past four or five years, there’s lots of interest in using more sustainable materials,” said Peter Shepard, Novomer’s Vice President of Business Development. “But when it comes to the practicality of doing something, there’s been a lot of stumbles and inaction.”

The “Shoe Without a Footprint” isn’t the only product that uses CO2 in foam. In May, Ford Motor Co. became the first automaker to announce plans to use captured CO2 in its foams for seat cushions. And Shepard said other industries, such as commercial and residential construction, are also interested in CO2-based rigid foams because they are less flammable and less likely to break down due to UV exposure.

And foam could be just the beginning.

How CO2 is captured and used

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In one of several ways to collect CO2, the gas from coal-fired power plants and other large industrial facilities is cooled, liquified and extracted.
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The CO2 that was collected is then transported in trucks.
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The harvested CO2 is then mixed with chemicals to turn it into a usable material.
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By reacting CO2 with other chemicals, the gas could be used to create products such as gasoline replacements, foams, plastics, cement and building materials.

Building Momentum

Given the burgeoning interest from automakers and other industries to use foams made from captured CO2, it might seem that the Carbon XPRIZE is unnecessary to jumpstart the industry.

But Novomer and other chemical companies are using much more concentrated forms of CO2 from industrial processes, and not the emissions coming from power plants. The Carbon XPRIZE requires teams to use the emissions from power plants. It also encourages innovation in how the CO2 is captured, but that is not a requirement.

Teams are given points for the fraction of CO2 they can convert from a power plant. If teams can find a cheaper way to extract CO2 using conventional technology, or extract more of it with a novel approach, they will get more points.

The real innovation, however, is expected to come in what the captured CO2 is used for. “This prize is not a carbon capture prize,” said Marcius Extavour, Director of Technical Operations at XPRIZE. “It’s a carbon conversion prize. You have to convert it into some useful product.”

Future Uses of CO2

Hover over images to learn more
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Cupcakes, brownies and other desserts could be made with baking soda made from CO2
Baked goods
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The foam in couches, sofas and car seats could be made with CO2
Foam
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The toys your children play with could be made with CO2
Plastic

By storing CO2 in everyday products, instead of relying on the trees and oceans to absorb it, the Carbon XPRIZE looks to reframe how we address CO2 emissions from energy production.

The Carbon XPRIZE will see a range of approaches. Some will try to make carbonates, minerals that can be used to make building materials like cement. Some are looking at turning CO2 into a liquid fuel that could be a drop-in replacement for gasoline. Still others may use biological routes, such as algae, to consume the CO2.

And then there is the massive market that “The Shoe Without a Footprint” only dips a toe into: replacing petrochemicals in products.

Today, many of those chemicals are made from petroleum, such as the ones used to make plastics, solvents and some pharmaceuticals. Not only could CO2-based chemicals help take gigatons of greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere, but it would also lessen the world’s dependence on oil.

“Unlocking some of these other economic uses of the captured carbon dioxide has to be done at a scale that can accommodate the tons and tons of carbon dioxide that can be captured from the power generation industry,” Trammell said.

Sketching of the Shoe
NRG tapped an entrepreneur and shoe designer to create the "The Shoe Without a Footprint."

Path For The Future

For large corporations – whether carmakers, footwear manufacturers or chemical giants – the need to consider lower-carbon materials is not just about hedging against future increases in the cost of fossil fuels. It’s about being relevant to the next generation, who will likely be both their employees and consumers of their products.

“These kids are coming with a more conscious thought process,” Edwards said of the students in his footwear design academy, Pensole.

“Earth doesn't have an energy problem. We have an energy storage problem.”
G.K. SURYA PRAKASH, a chemistry professor at the University of Southern California

Edwards added that they often ask why major shoe brands aren’t doing more on social and environmental issues: “If a small company came out with a line of shoes out of CO2 conversion, then the big brands will see it as a market opportunity.”

To develop novel solutions, it will take novel teams. The top Carbon XPRIZE teams are bringing together scientists that understand carbon capture, as well as those working on material science. Currently, there are 47 official teams competing for the Carbon XPRIZE. In total, teams representing seven different countries will demonstrate that they can turn CO2 emissions into valuable products.

By showcasing the level of talent available to tackle the industry, the Carbon XPRIZE hopes to wake up energy and chemical companies and other market players and encourage them to invest more in research and development – and maybe even in the Carbon XPRIZE contestants themselves.

“We want to challenge them to say ‘There is innovation in this space,’” Extavour said.

For the next generation of technology students, problems like carbon conversion offer an opportunity to marry social consciousness with their talent. “With $20 million in prize money, it entices a lot of small- and medium-scale innovators to come to the table,” Botha said. “Hopefully, with the same enthusiasm of Snapchat.”

The news and editorial staff of The New York Times had no role in this post’s creation.