CO2 is a chemical compound that is formed from the combustion of petroleum, natural gas, coal, biomass,

and other carbon-containing materials. CO2 is also a by-product of fermentation and animal respiration,
and it is used by plants in photosynthesis to make carbohydrates. CO2 is recovered for numerous diverse
industrial applications from flue gases, limekilns (a furnace for reducing limestone or shells to lime), and
other sources. The buildup of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere contributes to global warming and the
resulting changes in climate. Roughly one-third to one-half of the CO2 released into the atmosphere by
human activities is absorbed by Earth’s oceans, a process that has resulted in the oceans’
steady acidification.

Carbon sequestration:

The long-term storage of carbon in plants, soils, geologic formations, and the ocean. Carbon
sequestration occurs both naturally and as a result of anthropogenic activities and typically refers to the
storage of carbon that has the immediate potential to become carbon dioxide gas. In response to
growing concerns about climate change resulting from increased carbon dioxide concentrations in
the atmosphere, considerable interest has been drawn to the possibility of increasing the rate of carbon
sequestration through changes in land use and forestry and also through geoengineering techniques
such as carbon capture and storage.

Carbon sources and carbon sinks

carbon cycle

Anthropogenic activities such as the burning of fossil fuels have released carbon from its long-term
geologic storage as coal, petroleum, and natural gas and have delivered it to the atmosphere as carbon
dioxide gas. Carbon dioxide is also released naturally, through the decomposition of plants and animals.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased since the beginning of the industrial age,
and this increase has been caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is a very
effective greenhouse gas—that is, a gas that absorbs infrared radiation emitted from Earth’s surface. As
carbon dioxide concentrations rise in the atmosphere, more infrared radiation is retained, and the
average temperature of Earth’s lower atmosphere rises. This process is referred to as global warming.

Reservoirs that retain carbon and keep it from entering Earth’s atmosphere are known as carbon sinks.
For example, deforestation is a source of carbon emission into the atmosphere, but forest regrowth is a
form of carbon sequestration, with the forests themselves serving as carbon sinks. Carbon is transferred
naturally from the atmosphere to terrestrial carbon sinks through photosynthesis; it may be stored in
aboveground biomass as well as in soils. Beyond the natural growth of plants, other terrestrial processes
that sequester carbon include growth of replacement vegetation on cleared land, land-management
practices that absorb carbon (see below Carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation), and
increased growth due to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and enhanced nitrogen deposition. It
is important to note that carbon sequestered in soils and aboveground vegetation could be released
again to the atmosphere through land-use or climatic changes. For example, combustion (which is
caused by fires) or decomposition (which results from microbe activity) can cause the release of carbon
stored in forests to the atmosphere. Both processes join oxygen in the air with carbon stored in plant
tissues to produce carbon dioxide gas.

If the terrestrial sink becomes a significant carbon source through increased combustion and
decomposition, it has the potential to add large amounts of carbon to the atmosphere and oceans.
Globally, the total amount of carbon in vegetation, soil, and detritus is roughly 2,200 gigatons (1 gigaton =
1 billion tons), and it is estimated that the amount of carbon sequestered annually by terrestrial
ecosystems is approximately 2.6 gigatons. The oceans themselves also accumulate carbon, and the
amount found just under the surface is roughly 920 gigatons. The amount of carbon stored in the oceanic
sink exceeds the amount in the atmosphere (about 760 gigatons). Of the carbon emitted to the
atmosphere by human activities, only 45 percent remains in the atmosphere; about 30 percent is taken up
by the oceans, and the remainder is incorporated into terrestrial ecosystems.
Carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation

The Kyoto Protocol under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change allows countries
to receive credits for their carbon-sequestration activities in the area of land use, land-use change, and
forestry as part of their obligations under the protocol. Such activities could
include afforestation (conversion of nonforested land to forest), reforestation (conversion of previously
forested land to forest), improved forestry or agricultural practices, and revegetation. According to
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), improved agricultural practices and forest-related
mitigation activities can make a significant contribution to the removal of carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere at relatively low cost. These activities could include improved crop and grazing land
management—for instance, more efficient fertilizer use to prevent the leaching of unused nitrates, tillage
practices that minimize soil erosion, the restoration of organic soils, and the restoration of degraded
lands. In addition, the preservation of existing forests, especially the rainforests of the Amazon and
elsewhere, is important for the continued sequestration of carbon in those key terrestrial sinks.
Carbon capture and storage

Some policy makers, engineers, and scientists seeking to mitigate global warming have proposed new
technologies of carbon sequestration. These technologies include a geoengineering proposal
called carbon capture and storage (CCS). In CCS processes, carbon dioxide is first separated from other
gases contained in industrial emissions. It is then compressed and transported to a location that is
isolated from the atmosphere for long-term storage. Suitable storage locations might include geologic
formations such as deep saline formations (sedimentary rocks whose pore spaces are saturated with
water containing high concentrations of dissolved salts), depleted oil and gas reservoirs, or the deep
ocean. Although CCS typically refers to the capture of carbon dioxide directly at the source of emission
before it can be released into the atmosphere, it may also include techniques such as the use of
scrubbing towers and “artificial trees” to remove carbon dioxide from the surrounding air.

Carbon capture and storage is a three-stage process—capture, transport, and storage—designed to

reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into Earth’s atmosphere by separating it from
emissions before it can be discharged. Captured CO2 is compressed before it is transported. A similar
process called carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) converts some of the captured carbon
into concrete, carbonate rock, plastics, and biofuels before storing the rest.

Carbon dioxide capture

The main pathways used to extract and recover CO2 from a facility’s emissions are post-combustion, pre-
combustion, oxyfuel combustion, and direct air capture.

Post-combustion capture uses solvents (such as monoethanolamine, ammonia, and potash) to separate
CO2 from flue gas after the fuel is burned. To do this, the facility’s combustion process is retrofitted
with pollution-control equipment that removes CO2 selectively through absorption using amine-based
solvents, adsorption (in which gas molecules are pulled toward the surfaces with which they are in
contact), chilling, distillation, or passage of the gas through membranes. The gas is then heated in
recovery columns to separate the solvent from the CO2, and the CO2 is compressed to a liquid state where
it can be transported. The advantages of post-combustion technology include the ability to add scrubbers,
piping, and other infrastructure to existing power plants and that it is a fairly reliable technology, with
some techniques having been developed before World War II. Conversely, post-combustion carbon
capture is more costly, requiring sizable investments in equipment and chemical solvents. In addition,
untreated flue gas often has relatively low concentrations of CO2, which range from 4 percent in gas-fired
power plants up to about 14 percent in coal-fired plants, so the removal of relatively small amounts of
carbon using this process is expensive.

Pre-combustion capture involves removing CO2 from a fuel, such as coal or natural gas, before the
combustion is complete. The coal undergoes a process called gasification, which partly oxidizes the fuel
in steam and a mixture of oxygen and air under high pressure to form a synthesis gas, or syngas, which is
primarily made up of methane, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen. On its own, syngas can be used to make
liquid fuels, burned to produce electricity, or used to power the process of plasma arc gasification. With
additional processing, however, syngas can yield a mixture rich in CO2 and hydrogen gas (H2). Compared
with post-combustion capture, pre-combustion carbon capture is more efficient since the gas feedstock
has a higher CO2 concentration (often between 15 and 50 percent), and it can produce usable by-products,
such as hydrogen. While coal-fired power plants and industrial facilities may be retrofitted with equipment
that allows for pre-combustion carbon capture, installing gasification infrastructure is often more
expensive than the initial construction cost of a new coal-fired power plant.

Oxyfuel combustion capture burns the fuel in an environment of nearly pure oxygen instead of ambient
air (which is largely made up of nitrogen), which limits the waste by-products to CO2 and water vapour.
One advantage of this process is that CO2 is much easier to separate from emissions since the mixture
undergoes a dehydration process, and no solvents are needed. As much as 100 percent of the
CO2 released by burning the fuel can be captured, and equipment can be fitted onto existing facilities. To
achieve this level of efficiency, however, costs related to both specialized equipment and materials are
relatively high, along with the high energy demands associated with the separation of oxygen from other
gases in the air and high combustion temperatures that range from 1,650 to 2,480 °C (3,000 to 4,500 °F).
Direct air capture (DAC) is a process that extracts CO2 from the atmosphere directly, often well after
combustion has taken place. In this process, air is passed over streams or surfaces of liquid solvents
(such as potassium hydroxide, which attaches to CO2 molecules) or solid sorbents (such as amine-based
solids and specialized resins) using wind turbines to funnel air into air contactors (or scrubbing towers),
where these chemicals reside. Here, the CO2 is separated from the air’s other components. As in the post-
combustion carbon capture process, heat is applied to release CO2 from these materials so that it can
form carbonate salt pellets and other precipitates or be compressed for transport. Similarly, “artificial
trees”—that is, sticky, resin-covered filters—are designed to remove CO2 passively from ambient rather
than forced air; in this process, CO2 is converted into soda ash, which is washed off with water and
collected for storage. Although artificial trees are smaller and remove less CO2 than larger scrubbing
towers, they may become attractive alternatives to large-scale scrubbing-tower-style air contactors since
they are less energy intensive, less noisy, and far cheaper to manufacture and install than large DAC
facilities. While scrubbing-tower-style air contactors can be scaled to fit existing power plants, large-scale
DAC plants are often standalone facilities that are expensive to build. As of 2023 fewer than 20 large-
scale DAC plants had been constructed in the world.