When you think about carbon dioxide, chances are you think of a polluting gas being emitted by heavy industries and worsening the climate crisis. Yet, CO₂ also plays a surprisingly vital role in our everyday lives.
From providing you with fizzy drinks, to helping doctors perform life-saving procedures, carbon dioxide is everywhere – not just in the atmosphere. Behind the scenes, industries rely on CO₂ to make everyday products, to grow our food, and even to clean our water. In fact, it’s so embedded in modern life that global demand for it is rising year on year.
But there's a catch: most of the CO₂ our societies currently use comes from fossil fuels. What’s more, as the pressure to cut emissions grows and climate policy starts pushing fossil carbon underground for good, we're heading for a supply crunch.
Read on to explore how CO₂ is being used in both everyday and industrial settings, where it currently comes from, and why we need to switch to cleaner, more sustainable sources – fast.
The everyday uses of carbon dioxide
You might not be able to see it, but CO₂ is everywhere, underpinning key processes and products that modern society relies on. These include:
- Food and beverages – CO2 carbonates your favourite soft drinks and beer, and extends the shelf life of food through modified atmosphere packaging;
- Agriculture – Farmers use CO₂ to boost the yield of greenhouses. It’s also crucial for fertiliser production, especially urea, which supports global food systems;
- Healthcare – Hospitals and clinics use CO₂ for everything from minimally invasive surgeries to stimulating breathing in patients. It’s a mainstay in the medical world, used in critical care settings;
- Water treatment – Municipal water treatment facilities rely on CO₂ to adjust pH levels and neutralise alkaline water;
- Fire safety – If you’ve ever seen a fire extinguisher in action, you’ve witnessed CO₂ helping put out fires – especially in electrical or sensitive environments where water isn’t an option.
CO₂ might be invisible, but it’s embedded in the systems we depend on every day.
Industrial uses of carbon dioxide
CO₂ also plays a foundational role in manufacturing and heavy industry, whose impacts ripple through our global economy. These include:
- Chemical production – CO2 is used in methanol for plastics, and salicylic acid for pharmaceuticals, to name just a few applications;
- Construction – CO₂ is used to cure concrete and as a component of many other building materials, contained in the very fabric our towns and cities;
- Cooling – Dry ice (solid CO₂) is a powerful cooling agent used to transport vaccines and preserve food;
- Materials manufacturing – Polymers – large molecular structures – can be found in packaging, clothing, food, construction, and many more applications. This common chemical compound can be made with CO2;
- Fuels – From aviation fuel to petrol, hydrocarbons derived from CO₂ can help us get from A to B.
Where does all this CO₂ come from?
Right now, most of the CO₂ used commercially is a by-product of fossil fuel-based processes like ammonia production, ethanol fermentation, or natural gas refining. As demand for this vital chemical skyrockets, we need to find a more sustainable supply that won’t disrupt life as we know it.
In recent years, a number of more sustainable options have come to the surface:
Biogenic sources harness CO₂ from organic materials such as crops, food waste, or forestry residues. When this biomass is processed – for example, during anaerobic digestion or bioethanol production – the CO₂ released is part of the natural carbon cycle. Since the carbon in these processes originated from the atmosphere via photosynthesis, capturing and using it doesn’t result in new emissions. This makes biogenic CO₂ a carbon-neutral alternative to fossil sources.
Direct air capture harnesses the CO₂ already in the atmosphere anywhere in the world. DAC systems use fans to draw in ambient air before isolating and extracting its CO₂ content. What comes out the other side is high-purity CO₂ that can be directly used in industrial processes or stored permanently underground. Powered by renewable electricity and operating independently of the wider supply chain, DAC offers a reliable, location-agnostic supply of fossil-free CO₂ that can scale alongside growing demand. Depending on how CO₂ from direct air capture is used, the process can be carbon-neutral or carbon-negative. Our second DAC plant demonstrates the latter, by locking atmospheric CO₂ in building materials for thousands of years.
These sources are not only fossil-free but scalable, traceable, and future-proof. These sources are not only fossil-free but scalable, traceable, and future-proof.
A huge market – and a huge opportunity
The commodity CO₂ market is vast – every year, around 230 million tonnes of it are used across the globe, hitting a market value of $10.27 billion in 2022. Transforming it represents a major opportunity; by shifting away from fossil-derived CO₂ and investing in sustainable alternatives, we can:
- Unlock new, geographically independent sources of CO₂ (like DAC);
- Build a more resilient supply chain, insulated from price shocks, CO₂ shortages and factory shutdowns;
- Ensure our uses of CO₂ align with our climate goals.
Policies are already in motion that could make fossil CO₂ harder to access. As carbon pricing ramps up and emissions regulations tighten, the economic logic of capturing fossil CO₂ for reuse will flip. In many cases, it’ll need to be stored permanently instead, taking it off the market.
As industry decarbonises and looks for alternative sources for their irreplaceable feedstocks, the demand for commodity CO₂ is only going up. In fact, the global CO₂ market is projected to call for 2490 million tonnes of it every year by 2050 – and that’s just to cover our utilisation needs (this doesn’t account for the storage requirements we just mentioned).
From low-carbon fuels to CO₂-cured concrete and carbon-negative chemicals, the next generation of materials will need a new kind of CO₂ supply. At Mission Zero, we’re rapidly scaling our electrochemical direct air capture technology, to provide on-demand atmospheric CO₂, with zero fossil inputs.
Carbon dioxide uses – a new path
Carbon dioxide is much more than its negative effects – it's a feedstock, a refrigerant, a medical tool, and a core ingredient in everything from your food shop to your clothes.
We’re still going to need CO₂ in a Net Zero world, but we must change where it comes from. Clean, sustainable CO₂ supply solutions are already available, and offer an array of additional benefits.
Ready to explore a new, sustainable source of CO₂? Contact our Sales team today to learn more.
