"Carbon Dioxide Recycling for Fuels and Chemical Products"

The problem of the adverse effect of greenhouse gases released in the atmosphere became a global one in the recent years due to the caused probable climate changes. The mostly spread greenhouse gases are methane and carbon dioxide emitted by agriculture (methane), transport, industry and households (carbon dioxide). Carbon dioxide is considered as a big threat for climate changes because of its very powerful emissions all over the world. There are different ways for remedy of this global threat. First, it is to increase the energy efficiency to spend less carbon containing fuels in transport and industry. Another way is to replace, at least partially, the carbon containing fossil fuels by renewable ones, like wind, solar energy and waterpower, or by recyclable biomass. The third one is to recycle the emitted carbon dioxide to fuels (e.g. methane, synthesis gas, light hydrocarbons) and/or useful chemical products (methanol, formic acid, etc.). Mostly the carbon dioxide recycling is based on endothermic processes requiring input of energy thus polluting atmosphere with carbon dioxide in the general case. That is why a carbon-free sources of energy must be applied. Fuel cell applications seem promising to such a purpose.This minireview presents a comparison of the available data for reverse carbon dioxide conversion to methane and organic compounds.