• Question: Is there anyway to make carbon dioxide recycle able or 'got rid of'?

    Asked by dizzyg12 to Simon, Susan on 22 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Susan Skelton

      Susan Skelton answered on 22 Nov 2013:


      Hey dizzy!
      Yes there is! And the great thing about it is that it happens naturally! We don’t need to do much at all!
      You might have heard that trees are good for the environment? That is because their leaves can take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen! This process is called called photosynthesis.

      For photosynthesis, the word equation is:
      carbon dioxide + water (+ light energy) → glucose + oxygen.

      This means they take in carbon dioxide and water (and also need some light energy) and produce glucose (sugar) and oxygen.

      You can see that photosynthesis needs some light energy (on the left hand side of the equation) to make it work, so plants only photosynthesise when there is lots of sunlight. That means that in the day time, plants can turn carbon dioxide in the air into oxygen which we humans need to breathe. That’s why it’s a good idea to plant trees in polluted areas like cities: they help to clean up all the carbon dioxide in the air, producing more oxygen for us to breathe.

    • Photo: Simon Langley-Evans

      Simon Langley-Evans answered on 22 Nov 2013:


      Dizzyg
      As Susan says, this happens all of the time through the photosynthesis in plants. Our problem at the moment is that more CO2 is being released than in being captured by plants and so the level in the atmosphere is rising. Technologists are now very interested in carbon capture plants, which inject CO2 from the atmosphere deep into the ground to fill pockets in the rock under the surface. It may also be possible to pump it into the see or bind it to certain minerals.

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