Can we recycle carbon dioxide from the air?

Question

Would it be possible to recycle carbon dioxide from the air and transform it into Dry Ice....

Answer 1

Apparently, most dry ice is produced from CO2 from industrial processes (that would otherwise be released to the atmosphere).  Carbon dioxide is removed from air as dry ice during the production of liquid air, but the amount would not be that great (compared to the volume of air being processed) and it might contain a lot of water - manufacturers might even just let it sublime or use it for cooling in the plant...

Answer 2

There wouldn't be much point in trying to transform it into dry ice, but there is a lot of research being done on CO2 sequestration.

Sequestration is a $3 word for removing CO2 from the atmosphere and stashing it somewhere where it won't be a greenhouse gas.  

There are many suggested methods, including pumping it into the ocean, like we need anything else polluting the oceans.

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/se...

http://cdiac2.esd.ornl.gov/

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/07/...

Just Google CO2 sequestration.  You'll get lots of hits.

Answer 3

No that's absurd.  That would take way too much energy because CO2 is too dilute once it gets out into the atmosphere.

Storage of CO2 as dry ice is also impractical even if you could catch the CO2 in pure form as it was coming out of, for example, a lime kiln.

Plant a tree.  That's how CO2 is removed from the atmosphere.

Answer 4

I doubt it, though I did hear something about an "artificial tree". It somehow comes in contact with the CO2 and combines it with some other elements to create the same thing sea shells are made out of. I don't know too much about it, a friend of mine just showed it to me in his popular science magazine.