Journal of Climatology & Weather Forecasting

A brief study of Climate change, Plastic Paradox and conversion of CO2 at different diversities of industrial sector, becoming longer and more extreme around the world, tropical storms becoming more severe due to Warmer Ocean water temperatures. We need to combat climate, Plastic inconsistency and adapt CO2 for immediate remedy.

Azizul Haque^{* *}Correspondence: Azizul Haque, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh, Email:

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Introduction

The use of carbon dioxide in products is not new. CO₂ is used to make soda fizzy, keep foods frozen (as dry ice), and convert ammonia to urea for fertilizer. Today’s CCS market, estimated at $2 billion, could expand to $550 billion by 2040 according to a Boston-based market research firm. Much of this market is driven by adding CO₂ to cement which can improve its properties as well as reduce atmospheric carbon and to jet fuel, which can lower the industry’s large carbon footprint. CO₂ to plastics is a marketplace today, but the field aims to battle two crises at once - climate change and plastic pollution [1].

Plastics are made from fossil fuels, a mix of hydrocarbons formed by the remains of ancient organisms. Most plastics are produced by refining crude oil, which is then broken down into smaller molecules through a process called cracking. These smaller molecules, known as monomers, are the building blocks of polymers. Monomers such as ethylene, propylene, styrene, and others are linked together to form plastics such as polyethylene (detergent bottles, toys, rigid pipes), polypropylene (water bottles, luggage, car parts) and polystyrene (plastic cutlery, CD cases, Styrofoam). But making plastics from fossil fuels is a carbon catastrophe. Each step in the plastics life cycle extraction, transport, manufacture and disposal, emits massive amounts of greenhouse gases, mostly CO₂, according to the Center for International Environmental Law, a nonprofit law firm based in Geneva and Washington, D.C. These emissions alone more than 850 million tons of greenhouse gases in 2019 and is enough to threaten global climate targets!

Plastics are a serious crisis for the environment, from fossil fuel use to their buildup in landfills and oceans. But we’re a society addicted to plastic and all it gives us cell phones, computers, and comfy Crocs. Is there a way to have our (plastic-wrapped) cake and eat it too? But creating plastics from thin air is not easy. CO₂ needs to be extracted, from the atmosphere or smokestacks, for example, using specialized equipment. It often needs to be compressed into liquid form and transported, generally through pipelines. Finally, to meet the overall goal of reducing the amount of carbon in the air, the chemical reaction that turns CO₂ into the building blocks of plastics must be run with as little extra energy as possible. Keeping energy use low is a special challenge when dealing with the carbon dioxide molecule. There’s a reason that carbon dioxide is such a potent greenhouse gas. It is incredibly stable and can linger in the atmosphere for 300 years to 1,000 years. That stability makes CO2 hard to break apart and add to other chemicals. Lots of energy is typically needed for the reaction. In many cases, changes are coming faster than scientists had envisioned a few decades ago. The oceans are becoming more acidic as they absorb CO₂, harming tiny marine organisms that build protective calcium carbonate shells and are the base of the marine food web. Warmer waters are bleaching coral reefs. Higher temperatures are driving animal and plant species into areas in which they previously did not live, increasing the risk of extinction for many.

Initiation of the work

Creating plastics by linking small molecules (monomers), together to make large ones (polymers), was one of the triumphs of 20^th-century chemistry and no polymer was more triumphant than polyethylene. Even today, more than 80 years after its first industrial production is polyethylene and Its cousin polypropylene together constitutes more than a third of the plastics produced each year. But their well-known success is also a wellknown problem.

The resilience that makes them useful, makes them hard to get rid of, too. Ethylene (C₂H₄) and propylene (C₃H₆) both possess a double bond between two of their carbon atoms. It is this that allows them to polymerize. A polymer forms when (under the influence of heat, pressure, and a catalyst) these double bonds partially open and create free valences, which allow the molecule to react with other things. If the other things are similar molecules with similar free valences, the result is a dimer, which can then go on to form a trimer, a tetramer and so on through a process called isomerization. The ultimate result is a long polymer chain with no double bonds in it [2].

Background

All humans contribute to climate change but not equally. Global inequality of individual Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions between 1990 and 2019 based on a newly assembled dataset of income and wealth inequality, environmental input-output tables and a framework differentiating emissions from consumption and investments is that the bottom 50% of the world population emitted 12% of global emissions in 2019, whereas the top 10% emitted 48% of the total. These findings have implications for contemporary debates on fair climate policies and stress the need for governments to develop better data on individual emissions to monitor progress toward sustainable lifestyles. Note that the remaining carbon budget to have an 83% chance of staying below 1.50 C global temperature increase implies estimated annual GHG per capita emissions near 1.9 tones per person per year between 2021 and 2050 (and zero CO₂ emissions afterward). Inequality for climate policies and of their potential impacts on social groups is as follows (Table 1).

Table 1. Inequality for climate policies and their potential impacts on social groups.

Materials and Methods

Turning CO₂ into valuable products

Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) is a major contributor to climate change and a significant product of many human activities, particularly industrial manufacturing. A major goal in the energy field is to chemically convert emitted CO₂ into valuable chemicals or fuels. However, when CO₂ is available in abundance, it has not yet been widely used to generate valueadded products. This is because CO₂ molecules are highly stable and therefore not prone to being chemically converted to a different form.

So, the challenge begins with the CO₂ conversion process. Before being transformed into a useful product, CO₂ must be chemically converted into Carbon Monoxide (CO). That conversion can be encouraged using electrochemistry; a process where the extra energy is needed to make the stable CO₂ molecules to react. Interestingly, making up of CO is only a small fraction of the products that are formed. To explore opportunities for improving this process, Scientists focused on the electro-catalyst, a material that enhances the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the process. The catalyst is the key to successful operation. Inside an electrochemical device, the catalyst is often suspended in an aqueous (water-based) solution, and when an electric potential (essentially a voltage) is applied to a submerged electrode, dissolved CO₂ to be converted into CO. However, the prerequisite is that the catalyst and the CO₂ must meet on the surface of the electrode for the reaction to occur. That means we have to wait for the diffusion of CO₂ to the catalyst and simultaneously for the catalyst to reach the electrode before the reaction occurs. Again, we required two types of CO₂ conversion catalysts to work with, indeed. One is the traditional solid-state catalyst and another one is the catalyst made up of small molecules. After investigation, it was concluded that small-molecule catalysts held the most potential and while their conversion efficiency tends to be lower than that of solid-state, molecular catalysts offer one additional important advantage that they can be tuned to emphasize reactions and products of interest as well.

Two approaches are commonly used to immobilize small-molecule catalysts on an electrode. One involves linking the catalyst to the electrode by strong covalent bonds and the other one is a non-covalent attachment between the catalyst and the electrode and unlike a covalent bond this connection can easily be broken. Remarkably, neither approach is ideal. In the former one, the catalyst and electrode are firmly attached ensuring efficient reactions. But when the activity of the catalyst degrades over time, the electrode can no longer be accessed. In the latter case, a degraded catalyst can be removed but the exact placement of the small molecules of the catalyst on the electrode can’t be controlled, leading to an inconsistent and often decreasing catalytic efficiency.

What was actually needed was a way to position the small-molecule catalyst firmly and accurately on the electrode and then release it when it degrades. For that task, we required to add a kind of “programmable molecular Velcro”, deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. Here, DNA can stick things together with very high precision instead of performing biological functions in living things. This is because DNA sequences had previously been used to immobilize molecules on surfaces for other purposes. This process has been carried in two steps. Firstly, a single strand of DNA has been attached to the electrode. Then a complementary strand has been attached to the catalyst that is floating in the aqueous solution. When the latter strand gets near the former, the two strands hybridized and linked by multiple hydrogen bonds between properly paired bases. As a result, the catalyst is firmly affixed to the electrode by means of two interlocked DNA strands, one connected to the electrode and the other to the catalyst. In addition, immobilizing the DNA-linked catalyst on the electrode greatly increased the “selectivity” in terms of the product interests. One persistent challenge in using CO₂ to generate CO in aqueous solutions is that there is an inevitable competition between the formation of CO and the formation of hydrogen. That tendency was eased by adding DNA to the catalyst in solution [3].

Benefits of low carbon chemical industry

Adopting more efficient and low-carbon technology could create 29 million new jobs and double the turnover of the chemicals industry, one of the world’s biggest emitters of carbon dioxide, according to a new report and failure to do so could condemn the world to climate chaos. However, as the climbing emissions from the manufacture of chemicals could result in a global temperature rise of as much as 4°C above pre-industrial levels, which would bring catastrophe. Note that, chemical manufacturing industries accounts for about 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, roughly equal to the output of Russia, the world’s fourth largest emitting country and the products are used in a numerous of other industries from farming to automotive to consumer goods. It would be all but impossible for the world to stay within the limit of a 1.5°C temperature rise, which scientists say is vital and which nations agreed to aim for last year at the Cop26 UN climate summit, without sharp reductions in emissions from the chemicals industry.

In fact, we need realistic and immediate action from industry on the climate goals agreed at an international level. We want to see ambitious companies grabbing the opportunities represented by the global net zero transition. A planet positive chemicals industry is possible and this is a pivotal moment for the industry to redefine its future.

Recyclable plastics out of CO₂ to slow climate change

Chemists are manipulating greenhouse gases to make clothing, mattresses, shoes, and more. It's morning and you wake on a comfortable foam mattress made partly from greenhouse gas. You pull on a T-shirt and sneakers containing carbon dioxide pulled from factory emissions. After a good run, you stop for a cup of Joe and guiltlessly toss the plastic cup in the trash, confident it will fully biodegrade into harmless organic materials. At home, you squeeze shampoo from a bottle that has lived many lifetimes and then slip into a dress fashioned from smokestack emissions. You head to work with a smile, knowing your morning routine has made Earth’s atmosphere a teeny bit carbon cleaner. Sound like a dream? Hardly, these products are already sold around the world. And others are being developed. Meanwhile, the amount of CO₂ emitted continues to rise. The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted last year that if current policy and growth trends continue, annual global CO₂ emissions could rise from about 34 billion metric tons in 2020 to almost 43 billion by 2050.

Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is one strategy for mitigating climate change long noted by the IPCC (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). CCS captures CO₂ and incorporates it into carbon-containing products like cement, jet fuel and the raw materials for making plastics. Still in early stages of development and commercialization, CCS could reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 20 billion tons in 2050, more than half of the world’s global emissions today, the IPCC estimates. Latest observation of IPCC is that carbon dioxide removal is an essential element of scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C or likely below 2°C by 2100. Again carbon removal is not a replacement of deep decarbonization as well. The buildup of CO₂ began with the industrial revolution. Before about 1850, the natural concentration of CO₂ was about 270 ppm (Parts per Million) whereas the level has reached 335 ppm today. This buildup results from a slight imbalance in the way carbon moves around between four natural reservoirs. The atmosphere itself contains about 700 GT (Giga tons, 1 GT=1 thousand Mt/Million tons) of carbon in the form of CO₂, the living matter of earth, mainly the forests hold about 800 GT, the Ocean contains about 40,000 GT and the fossil fuel deposits on earth about 12,000 GT of carbon, the remains of once living matter [4].

Some examples of experiments of carbon remedy by different diversities across the globe

New tech aims to track carbon in every tree, boost carbon market integrity: This new digital platform billed as the first-ever global tool for accurately calculating the carbon stored in every tree on the planet. But also underscores the risk of assessing forest restoration and conservation projects solely by the amount of carbon sequestered, which can sometimes be a red herring in achieving truly sustainable and equitable forest management.

Renewable sources: Science can and must play a role going forward. Improved climate models will illuminate what changes are expected at the regional scale. Governments and industry have crucial parts to play as well. They can invest in technologies, such as carbon sequestration, to help decarbonize the economy and shift society toward more renewable sources of energy. Renewable carbon is carbon that avoids or substitutes the use of additional fossil carbon; for example, carbon from CO2 and carbon recycling. An approach to carbon transformation is bringing renewable carbon into people’s lives through the conversion of emissions to ethanol and the subsequent conversion of ethanol to the building blocks necessary to make a wide range of consumer goods that would otherwise come from virgin fossil resources .

Givaudan: A global leader in the world of scent and beauty, has joined forces with carbon-capture and transformation leader LanzaTech (converting carbon emissions to useful products, including fuel) for the development of sustainable fragrance ingredients from renewable carbon.

Airmade: CO₂ is a practically unlimited resource due to the carbon cycle in our atmosphere, making it a renewable and abundant feedstock. Airmade SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) shows the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 97% compared to traditional jet fuel. Using the same proprietary technology that mimics photosynthesis to create its consumer ethanol, Air Company has developed and deployed its single-step process for CO₂-derived fuel production using renewable electricity.

Reusing 1 kg of clothing saves 25 kg of CO₂

The UPC's INTEXTER, The Institute of Textile Research and Industrial Cooperation of Terrassa (INTEXTER) is an academic unit of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) has analyzed to calculate the share of fibers used in the clothes that are dumped in textile collection bins. The study uses an innovative methodology and is therefore more accurate than other approaches so far. About 550 kg of clothes were analyzed in the first study to characterize the fibers that make up T-shirts, shirts, coats, trousers, jackets, and other kinds of clothing that are dumped in textile collection bins. Their preliminary observation is that 62% are reusable and 37% are recyclable. The study concludes that the most common fiber is cotton with 50% in recyclable clothes and 60% in reusable clothes. Polyester follows with 30% in both types. Therefore, cotton and polyester account for about 80% in recyclable clothing and 88% in reusable clothing. The study shows a large difference between recyclable clothing (12.4%) and reusable clothing (3.1%), because clothing made from these fibers is the most readily deteriorated. In light of this analysis, we can say that the recycling strategy of post-consumer textile waste should focus on recovering and reusing 80% of the predominant fibers, namely cotton and polyester. The analysis also reveals that 66.8% of garments contain mixed fibers, which significantly limits their recycling potential. Only 37.3% of the garments studied are 100% made with a single fiber. Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, clothing production has been on an unsustainable path. Like most manufacturing, textiles are produced in a linear fashion with a cradle-to-grave model. Fabrics like cotton are farmed, worn, used, then thrown away. The textile industry as a whole is responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions, with leather being especially harmful.

Now the question is that how much we would reduce our environmental impact by reusing used clothing! If we could double the lifespan of garments, we would be reducing the fashion industry's greenhouse gas emissions by 44%. Extending the active life of clothing by just nine months would already reduce carbon, water and waste footprint by 20%–30%. An increase of 10% in second hand sales could save 3% of carbon emissions and 4% of water, according to the above data. Additionally, The UPC's INTEXTER has carried out an extensive bibliographic review of existing studies on how much CO₂ is saved by reusing clothing. It has concluded that reusing 1kg of clothing saves 25 kg of CO₂ [5].

GHG (CO₂) reduction during chemical recycling

Although Polyethylene (PE) and Polypropylene (PP) are the world’s largest volume plastics, only a tiny fraction of these energy-rich polyolefin are currently recycled. De-polymerization of PE to its constituent monomer, Ethylene is highly endothermic and conventionally accessible only through un-selective high-temperature pyrolysis via Tandem Catalysis strategy. The approach combines rapid olefin metathesis with rate-limiting isomerization. Monosaturated PE is progressively dissembled at modest temperatures via many consecutive ethenolysis events resulting selectively in propylene. Fully saturated PE can be converted to unsaturated PE starting with a single transfer dehydrogenation to ethylene, which produces a small amount of ethane. These ideologies are demonstrated using both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts and GHG reduction occurred (Figure 2).

Tandem catalysis strategy: is a technique in chemistry where multiple catalysts (usually two) produce a product otherwise not accessible by a single catalyst. Isomerization: is defined as the transformation of a molecule into a different isomer.

Ethenolysis: a chemical process in which internal olefins are degraded using ethylene (H₂C=CH₂) as the reagent.

Transfer dehydrogenation: is the process by which hydrogen is removed from an organic compound to form a new chemical (e.g., to convert saturated into unsaturated compounds).

GHG reduction: GHG Reduction means one metric ton of Carbon Dioxide Equivalent reduced, avoided, or sequestered by the Sub-Project activity below the Baseline Emissions, as created and monitored by ERPA (Emission Reductions Payment Agreements).

Metathesis: Metathesis reactions are chemical reactions in which two hydrocarbons (alkanes, alkenes, or alkynes) are converted to two new hydrocarbons by the exchange of carbon-carbon single, double or triple bonds.

Climate change drives rapid decadal acidification in the Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean has experienced rapid warming at a rate faster than any comparable region on Earth with a consequently rapid loss of sea ice in recent decades. It has been found that this sea ice loss is causing rapid uptake of atmospheric CO₂ by surface water and driving rapid acidification of the western Arctic ocean at a rate of three or four times higher than that of the other ocean basins, lowering its Alkalinity and buffer capacity leading to sharp declines of pH. Recent study shows that the melting ice could provide a promising "carbon sink," where carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would be sucked up carbon-hungry waters that had been hidden under the ice into the cold. That cold water would hold more carbon dioxide than warmer waters could and might help to offset the effects of increased carbon dioxide elsewhere in the atmosphere [6].