With few exceptions, carbon dioxide (CO2) delivered to most markets is in a liquid form, and when producing most product for most of the markets, purification is also an essential component.
The merchant CO2 industry would account for over 100 liquid plants domestically, which generally meet ISBT (International Society of Beverage Technologists) standards for quality, typical of what is required to supply to the beverage sector.
There are captive plants which supply the oilfield sector, which are not as tuned to quality as would merchant plants where, in rare cases, some plants have been designated only for frac grade quality. To handle a much larger oil and gas related tonnage would be enhanced oil recovery (EOR) plants, which pay less attention to quality rather than liquid volume. In developing markets in particular, integrated combustion plants often supply a flue gas which is recovered for downstream liquefaction/purification. This scenario covers places which lack strategically located CO2 by-product, or other traditional sources of CO2 for processing.
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