is is possible to make captured carbon back into a useful solid form?

Question

For many years now I have wondered why we aren’t able to turn the air captured carbon into useful things like carbon fiber or carbon nanotube batteries. surely there must be some way of doing this through the magic of chemistry.

In: 93

Answer 1

The problem is CO2 is ‘ash’, already oxidized carbon. You have to put the energy it took to burn in the first place to get it back to carbon form. So you’d need a huge solar plant or other renewable energy. But then plants do a better job of it already.