Petrol From Air: A Breakthrough in Fighting Global Energy Crisis
by
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· in Nature
The Breakthrough
A new breakthrough has jolted the world’s concern about the fossil fuel burn rate and the global warming. A small british firm created this revolutionary game changing technology, that creates gasoline from carbon-dioxide and water vapor. Air Fuel Synthesis in Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside has produced five liters of petrol since this August from a small refinery using their recently developed technology.
This method which is considered as a ‘holy grail’ of the emerging green planet is still at its development phase. The company has also expressed their future plans of expanding the refinery to produce tons of petrol per day, with a green idea of using only renewable resources for the operation of the refinery itself, like the wind farms solar power etc., As said by the company’s chief executive, Peter Harrison, the technology will be made as a versatile equipment that could find a space in your vehicles, replacing the current hydrogen fuel cell installation or the battery compartment and similar alternate configurations.
The Process
- Atmospheric air is collected by a tower filled with a mist of sodium hydroxide where the carbon dioxide reacts with some of the sodium hydroxide to form sodium carbonate.
- This sodium carbonate is then electrolysed to release the carbon dioxide that is stored
- A dehumidifier condenses water out of the same air passed into the tower, with this condensed water then passed into an electrolyser where it is split into hydrogen and oxygen.
- The carbon dioxide and hydrogen are reacted together to make a hydrocarbon mixture, with reaction conditions varied depending on the kind of fuel required.
- The product can then be mixed with the same additives used in current fuels or it can be blended directly with gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel.
The Forecast
The company’s motive is to transform this technology into a commercially viable product by the end of 2014. Currently, the process is considered as expensive to be a commercial business due to the carbon extraction factors. It promises that the revolutionary idea would be soon scaled high in UK with some funds and find its commercial application soon.
This post was first published on October 20, 2012.
What?? Awesome man!! I’d recommend this for d nobel………….
Nobel? This is just another populating way under the recycling hood!
too much crude to understand
Well.. I guess Klingon would work for you :)
Which part is hard to understand Anon?? Lemme explain it :)
Question, how does this remove CO2 from the air? You release it again when you release the energy from the fuel. And you produce CO2 making the electricity to create the hydrocarbons. Net result, CO2 released into atmosphere. It’s all very well claiming you are going to use renewables to generate electricity to create petrol, but excess renewable capacity is tiny.
And why is it an “aesthetic fact”, indeed, what is an “aesthetic fact”?
The efficiencies involved are /terrible/.
Well.. I haven’t said anything about REMOVING Carbon – dioxide.. I’ve clearly written that this tech could REDUCE the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere…
About that AESTHETIC FACT: U have the answer! REDUCING CO2..
The efficiencies involved are /terrible/. ????
Oh… Great :) Why dont you come up wid a breakthrough then?
Simply awesome!