Description

Petrochemical industry has been the driving force of society during the last two centuries, as it provides energy and a great variety of products. As a side effect of the use of fossil fuels, global temperature is increasing, due to the rise of carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the atmosphere. Therefor, there is a growing social interest in reverting this situation. The reduction of CO2 emissions is addressed from two different approaches: considering this gas a waste (storage technologies) or a resource (conversion technologies). This transformation process aims at promoting the latter. One of the main barriers to the development of CO2 chemical conversion processes is its high chemical stability. This limitation can be overcome by using reaction conditions and media that increase CO2 reactivity, such as reactions in an hydrothermal medium, which can be obtained by applying high pressure and temperature. It was proved through experiments that CO2 reduction using metals in an hydrothermal medium exhibits a series of advantages: the water not only works as an hydrogen source, but also as solvent with no environmental limitations. Moreover, hydrogen formed in high temperature water is more active than the so-called dry hydrogen, much more chemically stable. This technology can promote the development of continuous reactors, which could be assimilated by those industries producing great amounts of carbon dioxide by integrating them into the capture proccess. The use of continuous reactors allows to avoid the energy penalty existing over discontinuous and semi-continuous reactors.

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