Excerpts from the enclosed link won't copy over well, so we'll summarize a bit of the information.
Several research organizations in Europe are, or were, collaborating on developments leading to a comprehensive technology for, as we have been documenting to be possible and, perhaps, practical, reclaiming Carbon Dioxide and converting it into fuels and chemicals.
The groups involved include:
The University of Messina, Italy
The Max Planck Institute, Germany
The University of Patras, Greece
Louis Pasteur University, France.
The formal title of their joint project is "Electrocatalytic Gas-Phase Conversion of CO2 in Confined Catalysts".
Details of the research objectives are stated, with some editing for concision, as:
"To demonstrate the feasibility of the ... conversion of CO2 to Fisher-Tropsch (FT) products (C1-C10 hydrocarbons and alcohols) as (an) alternative innovative process ... starting from CO2 instead of CO and
having a selective supplying of energy which allow the tuning of the product distribution. Scientific objectives of the projects are to ... improve the selective use of energy and tune the catalytic performances; demonstrate the feasibility of combining catalysts ... to develop new process options with possible potential applications in a range of other areas such as energy and chemical syntheses."
having a selective supplying of energy which allow the tuning of the product distribution. Scientific objectives of the projects are to ... improve the selective use of energy and tune the catalytic performances; demonstrate the feasibility of combining catalysts ... to develop new process options with possible potential applications in a range of other areas such as energy and chemical syntheses."
In other words, they are/were working to refine technologies for recycling, on an industrial basis, Carbon Dioxide into "Fischer-Tropsch products (i.e., liquid fuel - JtM) having "applications in ... energy and chemical syntheses".
According to dates specified in the full document, the project was supposed to have been completed a few years ago, but we have so far been unable to locate a final report, or other data.
Like much of the information regarding the conversion of coal into liquid fuels and the recycling of Carbon Dioxide into fuels and chemicals, the trail heads are easy enough to find, but the trails themselves seem to vanish after you take a few steps into the woods. Thing is: If the end results of coal-to-liquid and CO2 recycling efforts were negative, don't you think that Big Oil and the environmentalists would trumpet them, and make certain we all knew it? But, if the end results were positive, what would you expect? We would expect them to smother the baby with a pillow, as quietly as possible, and bury it in the garden.
Look back on the historical and technical documentation concerning the coal-to-liquid and CO2-recycling technologies we've been able to unearth for you thus far, some dating back a century, or more, and draw your own conclusions.