**1. Introduction**

Life is based on carbon compounds. The dependence on coal is immanently integrated with human civilization. As the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports, in 2000 the annual average CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was 369.71 ppm, in 2010 it was 390.10 ppm, and in 2020 it was 414.24 ppm [1]. The growth trend results from the increasing demand for electricity and heat. Additionally, the share of transport in the economy grows, and the current technologies in the power industry and transport are based on fossil fuels [2]. It is not quite clear whether the increase in the CO2 atmospheric concentration of anthropogenic nature is crucial for the greenhouse effect. However, there is no doubt that phenomena related to the overloading of the atmosphere with CO2 result in such an effect. The opinion that it is the anthropogenic CO2 which threatens the fate of our civilization has increasingly often prevailed [3–6]. Therefore, it is very likely that this human dependence on coal leads to a critical excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The managemen<sup>t</sup> of CO2 has become a key issue in the fuels and energy industry. The legislation related to this issue is the subject of European Union regulations, e.g., the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) [7] and also the Kyoto Protocol, which took effect recently [8,9]. Work related to fuel engineering and new chemistry based on carbon dioxide as the raw material has become a significant challenge. The fact that the carbon dioxide resources in the environment are becoming greater and greater is, beyond dispute, related to CO2 ecotoxicity and its impact on climate change and the natural environment. Hence CO2 is an easily available and cheap chemical raw material [10].
