Arizona Synthetic Fuels: Carbon Neutral Alternative Fuel

The Arizona Synthetic Fuels team is working on methanol synthesis at Northern Arizona University

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• nau
• methanol
• carbon
• dioxide
• hydrogen
• discovery
• chanel
• channel
• green
• technology
• gtl
• gas
• to
• liquids

[yellowmetalcyborg]

There are a some flaws in this proscess, you are making electricity from electrolysis of water that is about 50% efficient using a dirty source of electricity, more than 75% of the energy in the US comes from fossil fuels and mainly coal. Secondly, you are stating that this proscess is cleaner than using natural gas, I disagree because there is less energy needed to make methanol from natural gas than to make it from CO2 and electrolysis of water...

[quidproquo2004]

@yellowmetalcyborg Yes, we know all of that. What you saw was a bench scale reactor. The end goal would be to use hydrogen gas from electrolysis powered by a renewable source of electricity. As well, the CO2 would be collected out of the air and thus recycled.

This would be cleaner than using natural gas.

In the near term, the CO2 would come from sources such as fermentation and coal plants. Instead of the CO2 being dumped into the atmosphere, it would be at least reused.

Questions?

[WorserThanYouX]

Nice rocket bike! When does it hit hte market?

[quidproquo2004]

Don't know, but I want one too. Probably be killed by an SUV though :/

[unabonger777]

@WorserThanYouX that's a fart cart

[yellowmetalcyborg]

@quidproquo2004 May I make a suggestion? Instead of converting solar energy into electricity (18-20% efficiency) and then using electrolysis to make hydrogen (50% efficiency) you could try to implement the so called sulfur iodine cycle, an endothermic reaction that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using concentrated light and heat from the sun (50% efficiency).