Harvesting Carbon (and other elements) from an atmosphere.

[EdLincoln]

The original idea was to harvest the carbon for the sake of simultaneously terraforming a CO2 rich atmosphere and gaining industrial benefit from doing so in the form of carbon based materials. My initial thoughts included nanotube based armors and building materials, but plastics, synthetic fossil fuels... just about anything could be a final outcome.

The advantage of a mechanical means rather than a biological means is that it could more easily be adapted to other elements/molecules for different atmospheres, then a different "production module" attached to make whatever is intended.

I *LIKE* this idea. The problem with using Earth plants is they need water and only operate well in a narrow range of temperatures. (One reasohy greening the Sahara in a Global Warming world is dubious.) However, algae are self replicating and VERY efficient.

I've always liked the idea of cyborg lichen. Build nanotube and silicate "body armor" for algae. Combine nanomachines and lichen.

There are lighter then air aerogels...embed algae and solar powered nanomachines in a lighter then air aerogel and let it float high in the atmosphere above the clouds. On venus it could reflect away excess sunlight, to

 

[RJM Corbet]

Electrolysis isn't going to work. CO2 is a non-conductor.

https://www.quora.com/How-can-carbon-dioxide-be-split-into-carbon-and-oxygen

" ... Splitting CO2 into carbon and oxygen is HARD.

CO2 is a very stable molecule that very much likes to stay the way it is, thank you very much, so splitting it requires a lot of energy. Think of it as the opposite of combustion. However much energy you got by burning carbon in oxygen to produce that CO2 in the first place, that is the minimum amount of energy you would need to add to reverse the process. Then you have to also consider that carbon monoxide is more stable that pure carbon and is almost always the preferred end product when you try to split CO2.

Here is one attempt, using high powered lasers.

Researchers discover a way to tease oxygen molecules from carbon dioxide

Note that it is only 5% efficient in producing carbon rather than carbon monoxide.

Final Note: The question need not exclude photosynthesis, because photosynthesis DOESN’T split CO2. Photosynthesis splits WATER into reactive hydrogen and oxygen free radicals. The hydrogen is then combined with CO2 in multi-step processes that generate organic molecules. The oxygen that is bound to the carbon in CO2 is never released. They either stay with that carbon, or get transferred to another carbon on another organic molecule somewhere in the reaction chain. The oxygen free radicals eventually combined with each other to produce molecular oxygen ..."