ABSTRACT
The final sequestration step of carbon dioxide sequestration tends to be quite expensive with no immediate economic return. As such, many companies are rather hesitant to invest into the technology required to capture the carbon dioxide in the first place. However, carbon dioxide emissions could still be reduced if that carbon dioxide could be repurposed to a nonvolatile use case, such as plastics or nonvolatile organic acids such as oxalic acid. If these uses can be made more profitable than allowing the carbon dioxide to be emitted into the atmosphere, companies will have a real and immediate incentive to invest in these technologies and practices. Several potential uses of carbon dioxide, including the conversion to oxalic acid, seem particularly promising in the long term, as these chemicals are somewhat uncommon and can form the backbone of critical mineral processes such as rare earth extraction.
