Science Questions

Where does industrial carbon dioxide come from?

(With regards using carbon dioxide to extract chemicals from hops) I assume the CO2 used in your fractionation process is part of the general CO2 found in the air and gets recycled accordingly? Keith, Watford

We put this question to Ray Marriott of Botanix Ltd.  You can read our entire interview with him here.

I think that’s a really interesting question.  There are processes such as fermentation and the production of fertilisers which actually generate quite high volumes of carbon dioxide.  It’s from these processes that we actually capture and purify the carbon dioxide and then use it for extraction.  It’s then used in multiple extraction so it’s actually quite and efficient way of using it.  And it’s actually a neat way of capturing CO2 from the brewing and fermentation process and reusing it to extract one of the raw materials.

October 2007