Carbon-dioxide reuse technologies

Today the fossil fuels coal, oil and natural gas make up 80 per cent of the energy mix. They will continue to be our main source of energy over the next few decades – and the resulting CO2 emissions will continue to contribute to global warming. The target agreed in the 2015 climate agreement, signed by the 195 countries who attended COP21 in Paris, is to keep this increase in global temperatures below 2°C. The mitigation measures designed to help achieve this include storage (carbon capture and storage or CCS) and reuse (carbon capture and utilisation or CCU) of CO2. While storage is generally economically unviable, research and development into new carbon-dioxide reuse technologies has widespread support.

From storage to polymer production

Carbon dioxide is an important resource and Eni is seeking to make best use of it through different technologies and techniques, limiting at the same time its effects on the environment. One technology currently being researched allows some of the CO₂ generated by a vehicle's engine to be directly captured and stored in a liquid or compressed form. The captured carbon dioxide can then be exploited in various ways:

• through a system that allows the CO₂ to be fixed permanently; by forcing it to react with waste from the mining industry, up to half a kilo of CO₂ can be stored for every kilo of such material
• using CO₂ as the reagent to produce polymers, in particular polycarbonates, with innovative technological properties compared to the original material
• employing CO₂ in energy-storage technologies, for example converting it to methane – a liquid compound that is easy to handle and transport and which is widely used both in the chemical industry as an intermediate and directly as a fuel.