Air Fuel Synthesis Turns CO2 Into Gasoline
Air Fuel Synthesis, a British company, has devised a system that collects carbon dioxide and water vapor out of the air and turns it into gasoline that you can put into your car. It is reported, that the process of air fuel synthesis has been working since August: the refinery combines water vapor and carbon dioxide, taking hydrogen from the water and combining it with carbon in the CO2 and a catalyst to create methanol, which is run through a bioreactor to turn it into gasoline. Tim Fox, head of energy and the environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London claims, that a pilot plant uses common components, but what is rousing, is that they have put the whole thing together and have shown that it can work. Yet efficiency of his innovative process is rather disputable, cause firstly, during two months of operation the refinery has produced only around five liters of fuel, and secondly, it is not clear, how much energy it consumes while operating. Still it must be taken into account, that this first generator is just a small pilot plant that’s operating as a proof of concept. Besides, the technology is scalable: an industrial-sized plant that produces a ton of fuel per day could be up and running in just two years. Regarding energy consumption, the plant can be placed next to a hydroelectric plant or wind farm to nuclear reactor to take advantage of the cheap electricity.
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