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username
Title: owner of a lonely heart
Joined: Jul 06 2007
Location: phoenix, az usa
Posts: 16136
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New reactor uses sunlight to turn water and carbon dioxide into fuel
Talk about a Eureka moment. Scientists at Sandia National Labs, seeking a means to create cheap and abundant hydrogen to power a hydrogen economy, realized they could use the same technology to "reverse-combust" CO2 back into fuel. Researchers still have to improve the efficiency of the system, but they recently demonstrated a working prototype of their "Sunshine to Petrol" machine that converts waste CO2 to carbon monoxide, and then syngas, consuming nothing but solar energy.
The device, boasting the simple title Counter-Rotating-Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (we'll go with "CR5") sets off a thermo-chemical reaction by exposing an iron-rich composite to concentrated solar heat. The composite sheds an oxygen molecule when heated and gets one back as it cools, and therein lies the eureka.
The cylindrical metal CR5 is divided into hot and cold chambers. Solar energy heats the hot chamber to a scorching 2,700 degrees, hot enough to force the iron oxide composite to lose oxygen atoms. The composite is then thrust into the cool chamber, which is filled with carbon dioxide. As it cools, the iron oxide snatches back its lost oxygen atoms, leaving behind carbon monoxide.
The same process can also produce raw hydrogen by pumping water rather than CO2 into the cool chamber. Hydrogen and carbon monoxide can then be blended into syngas, a replacement for current hydrocarbon-based combustibles like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. While it's not a total solution for carbon emissions -- syngas, after all, burns right back into CO2 -- it is an alternative to sequestering carbon underground, where it benefits no one.
CO2 recycling could be used to trap waste carbon from factories and power plants and return that energy to productive use, rather than releasing it into the air, where it can cause problems science doesn't even yet fully understand. The next step for the team is to increase the process's efficiency to twice that of natural photosynthesis. A market-ready CR5 device is still more than a decade away, but the idea of taking our waste carbon and turning it directly back into fuel using nothing but abundant solar rays is tantalizing, to say the least. |
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-11/co2-recycler-uses-sunlight-turn-waste-carbon-back-fuel
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| Klimbatize wrote: |
| I'll eat a turkey sandwich while blowing my load |
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Rydog
Title: Dragon Slayer
Joined: Aug 11 2009
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 1511
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Cool, they need to start pumping this shit out.
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Doddsino
Joined: Oct 01 2009
Posts: 5316
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What about night time?
Also, this isn't going to change anything. The U.S. isn't even close to using as much oil as countries such as China, their smog output is ridiculous as well.
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jackfrost
Title: Cold Hearted Bastard
Joined: Feb 21 2009
Posts: 861
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| Doddsino wrote: |
What about night time?
Also, this isn't going to change anything. The U.S. isn't even close to using as much oil as countries such as China, their smog output is ridiculous as well. |
Why the negativity? Even if its use is not immediately beneficial it is certainly an important find. Technology moves forward in steps and combines with new ideas to improve upon the original concepts. The Wright Brothers only flew 120 ft on their first flight and their plane flew 10 feet a second, but today we have planes that can fly over oceans and break the sound barrier. This may be a small step, but once it is built upon it could be very important to future generations. Give the idea time to grow before you say it won't change anything.
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[img]http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w204/akajackfrost/megaman.jpg[/img] |
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Ice2SeeYou
Title: Sexual Tyrannosaurus
Joined: Sep 28 2008
Location: South of Heaven
Posts: 1761
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Developing alternative fuels should be a primary concern for our government. In addition to the $$ benefits of being energy-independent and the benefits of reducing pollution, I also see it going a long way to combat anti-US sentiment and terrorism, due to the fact that we'd probably be able to scale back our involvement in middle-eastern affairs.
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Sydlexia.com - Where miserable bastards meet to call each other retards. |
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Doddsino
Joined: Oct 01 2009
Posts: 5316
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| jackfrost wrote: |
| Why the negativity? Even if its use is not immediately beneficial it is certainly an important find. Technology moves forward in steps and combines with new ideas to improve upon the original concepts. The Wright Brothers only flew 120 ft on their first flight and their plane flew 10 feet a second, but today we have planes that can fly over oceans and break the sound barrier. This may be a small step, but once it is built upon it could be very important to future generations. Give the idea time to grow before you say it won't change anything. |
I'm not being negative, it's just a common fact. Given the rate of consumption, we have about 100 years left of oil. We need oil, not for fuel, but for other uses including by products we use in our every day life. There are some areas that are going to be almost impossible to find an alternate source for, because the price is going to be way too steep. People always bitch about gas prices, but it's an effective way to slow down the rate. This should be an international understanding, but some countries are consuming double the rate they did each year. We've already in the process of hitting the peak oil within 10 years or so (that's figuring conservatively without expansion), and until there is a cheaper resource, we are going to hit it for sure. I'm sure this new idea sounds great, but if you're paying more for it, no one is going to be happy. It is getting worse, since last year oil drilling descreased, the prices tumbled and the oil companies cut their supply rate to make up for it. Also look at population growth, it just goes on and on. Yes, I am hopeful that we see a new energy source, but we're 15 to 20 years away from seeing it in place.
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