# How is liquefied carbon dioxide for industrial purposes produced?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-liquefied-carbon-dioxide-for-industrial-purposes-produced/489961>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 18, 2009, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-liquefied-carbon-dioxide-for-industrial-purposes-produced/489961 "2009-03-18T23:47:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![FlippyFly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@FlippyFly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlippyFly)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2009, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-liquefied-carbon-dioxide-for-industrial-purposes-produced/489961/1 "2009-03-18T23:47:46Z")

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How is liquefied carbon dioxide for industrial purposes produced? My manufacturing plant requires weekly shipments of liquefied CO2 and our supplier has been having some problems. They have indicated that they had a fire at their plant which got me thinking… what does a CO2 plant look like? How do they generate industrial quantities of liquefied CO2? Do they separate it out from the air and condense it, or perhaps generate it by burning hydrocarbons?

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**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-liquefied-carbon-dioxide-for-industrial-purposes-produced/489961/2 "2009-03-19T00:07:41Z")

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> **[Carbon dioxide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#Industrial_production)**
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> Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula .mw-parser-output .template-chem2-su{display:inline-block;font-size:80%;line-height:1;vertical-align:-0.35em}.mw-parser-output .template-chem2-su\>span{display:block;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output sub.template-che...

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**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-liquefied-carbon-dioxide-for-industrial-purposes-produced/489961/3 "2009-03-19T00:19:44Z")

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Also, from [UIG - Industrial Gases Production, Equipment Supply and Services](http://www.uigi.com/carbondioxide.html) :

> [@](#):
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> The most common operations from which commercially-produced carbon dioxide is recovered are industrial plants which produce hydrogen or ammonia from natural gas, coal, or other hydrocarbon feedstock, and large-volume fermentation operations in which plant products are made into ethanol for human consumption, automotive fuel or industrial use. Breweries producing beer from various grain products are a traditional source. Corn-to-ethanol plants have been the most rapidly growing source of feed gas for CO2 recovery.