What are some of the applications of carbon oxides?

Carbon oxides are useful commodities. A gas containing CO and hydrogen is called synthetic gas, because it can be converted to methanol using a catalyst. During the past few decades, many metal carbonyls have been prepared. These carbonyls are potential catalysts. When the metal carbonyl is a gas, the purified metal carbonyl gas can be used for the production of extra-pure metals.

Carbon dioxide is also a useful industrial gas. It is widely used in food and beverage industry. Here are some of its applications.

• making efferescent drinks
• manufacture of urea, CO(NH₂)₂, as fertilizer
• promote plant growth in green house
• making dry ice
• fire extinguisher
• provide an inert atmosphere for fruit and vegetable preservation
• as a supercritical fluid for solvent extraction

The critical temperature of carbon dioxide is only 304 K at a critical pressure of 7.39 MPa (almost 7 atm). These conditions can easily be met to generate supercritical carbon dioxide, which is a powerful and descriminating solvent. The supercritical fluid penetrates porous solids, evaporates without leaving a trace. Thus, this fluid is widely used as an extracting solvent. This fluid is also very useful in the field of analytical chemsitry.

On the high technology side, carbon dioxide lasers can provide a continuous laser beam from several milliwatts to several killowatts with a typical efficiency of 30%, one of the most efficient laser generation devices. This link also illustrates the basic theory of laser. Among many applications of laser, carbon dioxide laser has been used for skin resurfacing as an art of cosmetic surgery.

On the other hand, the heavier carbon dioxide usually stay in lower grounds, and when its concentration is very high, it can be a thread to living beings who will die of asphyxiation.