Fuel from Air
2012-11-18 23:28![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sgsguru The New Scientist has an article about creating gasoline from air and electricity. There are two reason this is important :
So here's the plan. We have three chambers A, B, and C. There is a proton-exchange membrane between A and B. There is a layer of zeolite catalyst between B and C. A contains water and a bit of sulfuric acid. B contains liquid CO2. C contains the generated hydrocarbon. Ideally, it'll be pure 2-2-4 trimethylpentane (AKA octane, AKA 100-octane gasoline); how pure depends on how good the catalyst guys are.
An electric current through A, with the negative pole at the membrane, electrolyzes the water to hydrogen ions and oxygen. The oxygen is "waste" for this process. The H2 ions pass through the membrane into B, where, with a proper catalyst, they pull an oxygen atom off of a CO2 molecule, converting it to CO. Now, a mixture of CO and H2 is called "process gas", which is an input to all sorts of useful chemical syntheses. In WWII, the Germans made synthetic gasoline from process gas via the Fischer–Tropsch process. This uses a fairly simple nickel catalyst and produces complex hydrocarbon glop that can be dumped into a conventional oil refinery. I'm sure that our catalyst guys can come up with something a lot better. Last time I looked, zeolites were the top catalysts for petroleum chemistry.
Separating the CO from the CO2, transporting the CO to the reaction zone to convert it to gasoline (or at least hydrocarbon glop), separating out the water resulting from converting CO2 to CO, and transporting the water back to chamber A are things that I have no idea how to do.
Anyway, it's a half-baked idea that I wanted to get down in electrons. Perhaps somebody else can do something with it, or let me know why I'm full of little red ants.
- Most alternative energy sources are not constant. There has to be some way of storing energy for later use. The flip side of this is that alternative energy sources can produce too much energy; sometimes the producers have to pay somebody else to take it off their hands.
- Liquid hydrocarbon fuel is far and away the most efficient way of fueling transport. Should be; we've been doing it for over 100 years now.
So here's the plan. We have three chambers A, B, and C. There is a proton-exchange membrane between A and B. There is a layer of zeolite catalyst between B and C. A contains water and a bit of sulfuric acid. B contains liquid CO2. C contains the generated hydrocarbon. Ideally, it'll be pure 2-2-4 trimethylpentane (AKA octane, AKA 100-octane gasoline); how pure depends on how good the catalyst guys are.
An electric current through A, with the negative pole at the membrane, electrolyzes the water to hydrogen ions and oxygen. The oxygen is "waste" for this process. The H2 ions pass through the membrane into B, where, with a proper catalyst, they pull an oxygen atom off of a CO2 molecule, converting it to CO. Now, a mixture of CO and H2 is called "process gas", which is an input to all sorts of useful chemical syntheses. In WWII, the Germans made synthetic gasoline from process gas via the Fischer–Tropsch process. This uses a fairly simple nickel catalyst and produces complex hydrocarbon glop that can be dumped into a conventional oil refinery. I'm sure that our catalyst guys can come up with something a lot better. Last time I looked, zeolites were the top catalysts for petroleum chemistry.
Separating the CO from the CO2, transporting the CO to the reaction zone to convert it to gasoline (or at least hydrocarbon glop), separating out the water resulting from converting CO2 to CO, and transporting the water back to chamber A are things that I have no idea how to do.
Anyway, it's a half-baked idea that I wanted to get down in electrons. Perhaps somebody else can do something with it, or let me know why I'm full of little red ants.
