{"id":206567,"date":"2025-10-07T08:58:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T08:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/206567\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T08:58:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T08:58:06","slug":"making-sustainable-plastic-from-the-carbon-dioxide-in-the-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/206567\/","title":{"rendered":"Making sustainable plastic from the carbon dioxide in the ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Making<\/p>\n

Credit: Nature Catalysis (2025). DOI: 10.1038\/s41929-025-01416-4<\/p>\n

The ocean is Earth’s largest carbon sink, absorbing about 25% of the CO\u2082 released by human activities. However, this uptake contributes to ocean acidification and risks destabilizing marine ecosystems. Utilizing this carbon resource presents a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels to produce important chemicals and materials, such as plastics.<\/p>\n

A system to capture carbon dioxide<\/a> (CO\u2082) from seawater and convert it into biodegradable plastic precursors has been reported<\/a> in Nature Catalysis. The findings suggest a potentially sustainable way to produce industrial chemicals.<\/p>\n

Chuan Xia and colleagues engineered a two-part system that captures CO\u2082 from natural seawater with more than 70% efficiency and low energy consumption (around 3 kilowatt-hours per kilogram of CO\u2082), operating continuously for 536 hours. The carbon capture cost was found to be competitive against current technology, at US$229.9 per ton of CO\u2082.<\/p>\n

First, the CO\u2082 was converted into pure formic acid using an electrocatalyst. This was then transformed by engineered bacteria, Vibrio natriegens, into succinic acid, which is the starting material needed to prepare poly(butylene succinate), a biodegradable thermoplastic polymer. The researchers achieved production levels of up to 1.37 grams per liter in scaled-up fermenters.<\/p>\n

The system could also be used to produce numerous other chemicals from CO\u2082\u2014for potential use in various products such as fuels, drugs and foods\u2014by further engineering the catalysts used in each part (the electrode and the microorganism), the authors suggest. Although the system shows scalability and stability, further optimization is needed to improve yields and integration for industrial use.<\/p>\n

More information:
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChengbo Li et al, Efficient and scalable upcycling of oceanic carbon sources into bioplastic monomers, Nature Catalysis (2025). DOI: 10.1038\/s41929-025-01416-4<\/a><\/p>\n

Provided by
\n Nature Publishing Group<\/a>
\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n Citation:
\n Making sustainable plastic from the carbon dioxide in the ocean (2025, October 6)
\n retrieved 7 October 2025
\n from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/news\/2025-10-sustainable-plastic-carbon-dioxide-ocean.html\n <\/p>\n

\n This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
\n part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Nature Catalysis (2025). DOI: 10.1038\/s41929-025-01416-4 The ocean is Earth’s largest carbon sink, absorbing about 25% of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[24865,192,24862,24863,11382,4530,24864,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-206567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-computer-news","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-hi-tech-news","11":"tag-hitech","12":"tag-information-technology","13":"tag-innovation","14":"tag-inventions","15":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}