These Companies Are Making Physical Goods Out of Thin Air 10/22/21, 08:56

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These Companies Are Making Physical

Goods Out of Thin Air

Carbon recycling turns gases sequestered from industrial processes into chemicals for product
creation.

AC By Audrey Carleton

October 13, 2021, 8:25am

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4avkam/these-companies-are-mak…eWljVQf8YsxsLbSAePcvHXWmd6zchZ--uGEx4W_I6Mccpz24wiTYxkV5t_n3U4 Page 1 of 11
These Companies Are Making Physical Goods Out of Thin Air 10/22/21, 08:56

Making Biodegradable Objects Out of Greenhouse Gases

The Next 50 Years explores the technologies changing and improving our world.

What if our everyday household items were made out of thin air?

If that sounds like a pipe dream, it’s not—a growing number of technologies are
using carbon emissions from industrial processes to create wallets, shampoo
bottles, and straws.

It’s called carbon recycling, and companies like Lanzatech and Newlight
Technologies are leading the charge, a new Motherboard documentary details.

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These Companies Are Making Physical Goods Out of Thin Air 10/22/21, 08:56

These technologies take carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gasses
sequestered from industrial processes and turn them into chemicals for product
creation through commercial reactors.

Lanzatech uses industrial facilities, bolted onto other infrastructure like steel
mills and landfills, to collect these emissions and break them down into ethanol
using bacteria. That ethanol is then used as a key ingredient in bottles, synthetic
fabric materials, and jet fuel.

“If we turn greenhouse gas into a product that performs great, meets the price
expectation of a consumer, but helps improve the environment, then you don’t
have to say, ‘Oh, please do a good thing,’ or ‘You should or shouldn’t do
something,’ this is just a better product,” Mark Herma, CEO and founder of
Newlight Technologies told Motherboard.

Using industrial emissions of CO2 and methane, a greenhouse gas that’s

approximately 86 times more potent than CO2 in its warming potential over 20
years, Newlight has created a synthetic, biodegradable material called AirCarbon.

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These Companies Are Making Physical Goods Out of Thin Air 10/22/21, 08:56

It’s made of recycled emissions and can degrade as quickly as any other organic
matter; it’s an overall good for atmospheric emissions and waste volumes.

Better yet, it’s produced with blockchain; customers can track the life cycle of
the product to see where the emissions from their product would’ve otherwise
ended up.

“I believe 50 years from now, there will be no more waste,” Lanzatech CEO
Jennifer Holmgren told Motherboard. “Everything will be reused. We will be like
nature.”

This series is supported by Delta. Motherboard retains complete editorial

independence.

TAGGED: CARBON SEQUESTRATION

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These Companies Are Making Physical Goods Out of Thin Air 10/22/21, 08:56

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These Companies Are Making Physical Goods Out of Thin Air 10/22/21, 08:56

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