New reactor makes fuel from CO2
A solar-powered reactor developed by scientists at the University of Cambridge can extract CO2 from the air and convert it into fuel. This is of initial interest to the chemical industry, but the researchers will also look at the possibilities of making liquid synthetic fuels for cars and aircraft in the same way.
“What if, instead of pumping CO2 into the ground, we turned it into something useful?”, lead researcher Dayan Kar wonders aloud. He and his colleagues think such an alternative would be better than capturing and storing underground the greenhouse gas that contributes most to current climate change. “If we can make these kinds of devices on a large scale, they can solve two problems at once: we remove (CO2) from the atmosphere and create a clean alternative to fossil fuels.”
The researchers published the results of their efforts in Nature Energy. The reactor sucks up carbon dioxide at night using special filters. During the day, the gas is heated using radiation from the sun. A conductive powder then triggers a chemical reaction that converts the captured CO2 into syngas. Fuels made in this way are CO2 neutral. When they are burned, the CO2 is released again, but unlike oil, gas and coal, no additional greenhouse gases are added to the atmosphere this way.
No alternative to electric
Other research last week seriously questioned the potential of synthetic fuels for road transport. The Forum Ökologisch-Soziale Marktwirtschaft (FÖS) delved into several studies on the subject and concluded that synthetic fuels are simply not a realistic alternative to electric driving. The development of e-fuels comes too late, availability is very limited and the fuels are also far too expensive to compete with electric driving, FÖS said. That does see potential for e-fuels in aviation and shipping, where electrification is a much tougher story than in road transport.
