U.K.-BASED AIR FUEL SYNTHESIS SUCCESSFULLY GENERATES GASOLINE OUT OF THIN AIR, COMMERCIALIZATION PLANNED BY 2015

   

Breakthrough technology takes carbon, hydrogen and oxygen from CO2 and water in the air to create methanol and then converts it into gasoline.

Gasoline is the quintessential non-renewable fuel, but British scientists could soon change that. They have developed a way to make gasoline not only renewable, but also carbon neutral. How is that possible? By plucking the fuel out of the air, according to New Scientist.

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It sounds like alchemy or magic — an idea about as sensible as growing money on trees. But it's real. Researchers have developed a way to convert air into gasoline. In fact, the concept has been around for decades, ever since the oil crisis of the 1970s.

 

Here's basically how it works: first scientists collect carbon, hydrogen and oxygen from the CO2 and water that are readily present in the air. These raw materials are all that are needed to generate methanol, and methanol can be converted into gasoline.

 

It seems so simple that you may wonder why we haven't been getting our gasoline this way all along. Well, that's because there's just one small complication: So far scientists haven't been able to prove that the process generates more energy than it requires. The technique requires electricity for its chemical conversions, and the process cannot be viable until it is demonstrated that the energy needed as input costs less than what is gained as output.

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The Air Fuel Synthesis, LTd. synthetic gasoline pilot plant in Northern England (Click Image To Enlarge)

 

That's where British company Air Fuel Synthesis comes in. The company has taken on the task of demonstrating that the technique works, that it produces a viable fuel, and that it can be made energy-efficient. The first half of the equation has now been settled, as the company has successfully demonstrated the conversion process.

 

Peter Edwards, an inorganic chemist at the University of Oxford, said.

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"I take my hat off to Air Fuel Synthesis. They have taken a concept that has been around for 35 years and gotten the process going." 

 

The fuel is not only viable; the company believes it will be suitable for high-performance vehicles. But the biggest benefit of the fuel is its sustainability. Since burning the fuel only releases the same carbon dioxide that was already in the air to begin with, it is carbon neutral. (That is, so long as the electricity required to make the necessary chemical conversions is sourced from renewable energy like wind or solar.)

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Air Fuel Synthesis technician takes notes as he checks its oil synthesizing plant equipment (Click Image To Enlarge)

 

Another potential benefit of the fuel is that it will be price-predictable. Gas prices won't fluctuate because the fuel source will be stable.

 

Before any of this is possible, however, Air Fuel Synthesis needs to demonstrate the vital second half of the equation: the energy-efficiency of the process. For that, the company will need a bigger plant. They expect to have one up and running by 2015. Given the success of the process so far, the company is optimistic.

 

AFS marketing manager Graham Truscott said.

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"The demonstrator has given us the confidence that this next level of gasoline plant will be efficient enough." D

Air Fuel Synthesis technician displays a vial of full of methanol extracted from air using its technology (Click Image To Enlarge)

COMMENTARY:    Rather than mine carbon from the Earth in the form of coal, AFS acquires its carbon from the CO₂ in the atmosphere. The result is a process whose only net production of CO2 is related to the power required to drive synthesis of the fuel. The general approach has been suggested by numerous people over the years, but AFS appears to be the first commercial company to work out the details and put together a pilot plant. Admittedly, the pilot plant is only producing about 1 percent of the projected yield per day, but the technological problems can be solved, as they have been in other contexts.

 

The AFS Process - Turning Air Into A Sustainable Fuel

1. Air is blown up into a tower and meets a mist of a sodium hydroxide solution. The carbon dioxide in the air is absorbed by reaction with some of the sodium hydroxide to form sodium carbonate. Whilst there are advances in CO2 capture technology, sodium hydroxide has been chosen as it is proven and market ready.
2. The sodium hydroxide/carbonate solution that results from Step 1 is pumped into an electrolysis cell through which an electric current is passed. The electricity results in the release of the carbon dioxide which is collected and stored for subsequent reaction.
3. Optionally, a dehumidifier condenses the water out of the air that is being passed into the sodium hydroxide spray tower. The condensed water is passed into an electrolyser where an electric current splits the water into hydrogen and oxygen. Water might be obtained from any source so long as it is or can be made pure enough to be placed in the electrolyser.
4. The carbon dioxide and hydrogen are reacted together to make a hydrocarbon mixture, the reaction conditions being varied depending on the type of fuel that is required.
5. There are a number of reaction paths already in existence and well known in industrial chemistry that may be used to make the fuels.
   1. Thus a reverse-water-gas shift reaction may be used to convert a carbon dioxide/water mixture to a carbon monoxide/hydrogen mixture called Syn Gas. The Syn Gas mixture can then be further reacted to form the desired fuels using the Fisher-Tropsch (FT) reaction.
   2. Alternatively, the Syn Gas may be reacted to form methanol and the methanol used to make fuels via the Mobil methanol-to gasoline reaction (MTG).
   3. For the future, it is highly likely that reactions can be developed whereby carbon dioxide and hydrogen can be directly reacted to fuels. 
   4. The AFD product will require the addition of the same additives used in current fuels to ease starting, burn cleanly and avoid corrosion problems, to turn the raw fuel into a full marketable product. However as a product it can be blended directly with gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel.

Click Image To Enlarge

The Challenges To Produce Gasoline That is Carbon Neutral

According to Allen Ginsberg's poetic rewording of the laws of thermodynamics: 

1. You can't win.
2. You can't breakeven.
3. You can't quit.

Air Fuel Synthesis, Ltd. (AFS) made headlines for a chemical process that claims to synthesize gasoline from air and water.  In essence, AFS is using energy to unburn fuel so that it can be burned as fuel again – a great deal of energy. Sixty kWh of electric energy are used up to store 9 kWh of that energy in a liter of gasoline.  When you take into consideration that gasoline vehicles are about 15 percent efficient, a car fueled with synthetic gasoline would use roughly 35 times more energy on a given trip than would an electric vehicle. Not, it would seem, a prescription for a commercially valuable green product.

The AFS Timetable For Delivering Commercial Carbon-Neutral, Sustainable Fuels

2012 – 2015 Demonstration facility and initial commercial projects

Develop practical designs at a variety of scales to advance our green technologies, processes, market insight and opportunities.

Key objectives for making sustainable fuels are:

• To progress AFS technology rapidly into commercially viable projects
• Build up renewable liquid fuel operational expertise and intellectual property
• Develop close renewable energy partnerships along the supply chain and into the marketplace. 

We will achieve this by:

Stage 1 - Developing initial commercial projects of 1 – 10 tonnes of renewable fuel per day

This involves:

1. Scaling up the Demonstrator and designing for minimum operator and maintenance time.
2. Designing  optimum sized containerised  units for creating renewable and carbon neutral fuels.
3. Entering agreements with customers for specialist high-performance carbon-neutral fuels, especially, initially in motorsports.
4. Developing a range of commercial agreements with renewable energy technology partners.
5. Exploit agreements with fuel technology companies by establishing non-fossil CO2 projects.

Stage 2 - Commercial project development:

AFS develops commercially sustainable fuel projects by leveraging our technology and project expertise and connections. We build containerised fuel production units in projects which can be located anywhere that a supply of renewable electricity exists.

The projects that build these plants can include special purpose vehicles in which AFS holds minority stakes and licensing arrangements. 

The work involved includes:

1. Commercial assessment taking in the sustainable fuel market, technology, and geographic options.
2. Detailed engineering studies, estimates, and plans.  This includes identifying renewable energy technology suppliers who can develop and manufacture sustainable fuel technology, including; hydrogen electrolysers, CO2 release electrolysers, gas storage, and fuel manufacturing units.
3. Commercial and system modelling to determine optimum product mix for commercially-viable sustainable fuel
4. Full technology and economic proposals for producing sustainable liquid fuel.
5. Project marketing, raising project funding and cementing relationships with project partners for renewable liquid fuel.
6. Understanding market opportunities for sustainable liquid fuel both in current economic norms and as fossil-oil induced shocks occur.

Stage 3 - 2015 - 2020

1. Build larger commercial carbon-neutral, sustainable and renewable energy powered fuel project(s).
2. Expand the "non-fossil CO2 to fuel" business.
3. Market individual carbon-neutral technologies e.g. CO2 capture, fuels processing.
4. Market proven containerised sustainable air fuel synthesis systems into initial niche markets.
5. Continuously develop business plan and raise finance for follow on sustainable fuels projects.
6. Continue technological and supply chain developments in renewable energy.
7. Create further opportunities/exit points for investors, eg, through Special Purpose Vehicles (while minimising equity dilution of parent company).

Stage 4 - 2020 - 2025

1. Operate, or sell, initial sustainable fuels projects.
2. Continue to grow the renewable, non fossil CO2 business.
3. International development of individual technologies and containerised systems.
4. Implement secondary sustainable fuels projects.
5. Continuously develop business plans and raise finance for further renewable and carbon neutral fuels projects.
6. Provide further opportunities/exit points for investors, eg, through Special Purpose Vehicles (while minimising equity dilution of parent company).

2025 onwards - Long term plan

Implement further sustainable air fuel synthesis projects (taking total fuel production up to and over  10 million tonnes per year)

 

Courtesy of an article dated Octobwer 28, 2012 appearing in Mother Nature Network and an article dated October 30, 2012 appearing in Gizmag