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Carbon dioxide (CO2) has played a crucial role in managing the
COVID-19 pandemic, mitigating the demand impact caused by the drop
from industrial applications. As a result, growth in the CO2 market
is expected to average 1.6%/year from 2020-2025, with demand from
liquid and solid applications growing at a higher rate than the
average and gaseous CO2 recovering at a slower rate from the
pandemic.
The highest growth rates are forecast for Latin America at 6.5%
per year, followed by the Middle East and Africa, which are
expected to grow at 4.3% and 3.3% per year through 2025,
respectively.
The use of CO2 in the food sector - a major consumer of liquid
CO2 - has risen during the pandemic despite a decline in diners at
restaurants. The prolonged closures of restaurants, social
distancing and various lockdowns have driven increased planning for
food inventories and production of frozen food products, which uses
CO2. Shipments from large frozen food manufacturers to supermarkets
and other retail outlets is expected to continue as off-premise
channels like grocery outlets, convenience, and liquor stores
stepped up to fill in the gap for consumers to offset the closure
of on-premise establishments thus increasing demand for CO2 in the
form of dry ice. Dry ice has also been instrumental in enabling
major vaccines to be transported and distributed.
The beverage industry has also been making changes to deal with
the pandemic. As sporting events, concerts, and conferences were
cancelled, almost all marketing changed to online. This is expected
to continue until normalcy returns.
Meanwhile, supply of CO2 as a by-product of ethanol fermentation
was cut significantly as the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to travel
and dragged down gasoline demand. Most of the corn-based ethanol
production plants in the U.S. were either idled or operating under
reduced capacity, causing pockets of CO2 supply shortages.
Because of its unique properties, CO2 is a versatile compound
with many different applications in gaseous, liquid, and solid
states. It is used as a chemical building block (mainly for urea
synthesis from ammonia), as an acidifier in beverage and water
treatment applications, as a supercritical solvent (e.g., in
enhanced oil recovery and caffeine extraction from coffee), as a
shielding and inerting gas (e.g., in metalworking or food
preservation), and as a chilling and cleaning agent while in a
solid state (it sublimates from solid directly to gaseous
state).
However, CO2 is regarded as the leading climate killer for its
role in accelerating global warming. CO2 is produced by the burning
of fossil fuels to generate electricity and heat, or for
transportation purposes; via the production of cement; and by
various other industries. Attempts are now being made to limit and
reduce CO2 emissions while collecting and sequestering carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere.
Mainland China is the leading market for overall carbon dioxide
demand, followed by North America, and Southwest Asia. North
America leads in the consumption of liquid and solid CO2.
