British Company Converts Air Into Petrol Fuel That Can Be Used in Cars and Planes
A British firm has produced the first ‘petrol from air’, it emerged today, in a pioneering scientific breakthrough that could end mankind’s reliance on declining fossil fuels.
From the article:
While the company is still developing their process and still need to take electricity from the national grid, it believes it will eventually be possible to power the synthesis entirely from renewable sources.
Within two years it hopes to build a commercial-scale plant capable of making a ton of petrol a day and expand into producing green aviation fuel to make airline travel more eco-friendly.
The technology involves mixing air with sodium hydroxide, then electrolysing the resultant sodium carbonate to release pure carbon dioxide.
This is then reacted with hydrogen electrolysed from water to make a hydrocarbon mixture, with the reaction conditions varied depending on the type of fuel desired.
The fuel that is produced can be made ready for use in any petrol tank with the addition of the same additives currently added to fuel.
Alternatively it can be blended directly with gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel. […]
While the company claims to have used carbon dioxide extracted directly from the air in their reaction, it is mainly using industrial sources of the gas until it is able to improve the performance of ‘carbon capture.’
As yet the process is considered too expensive to be commercially viable, with the extraction of one ton of carbon dioxide costing as much as £400.
Note that the original article is from the Daily Mail.
