Earlier this month, Aircela announced it had created the world’s first functional machine capable of generating real, usable car gasoline “directly from the air.” The new device, roughly the size of a commercial refrigerator, combines direct air capture (DAC) with on-site fuel synthesis to create gasoline using just air, water, and renewable energy. No fossil fuels, the company says, are required.
Sagrilarus on
My early-warning BS radar went off big time when I read, *”And while electric vehicles have been heralded as a greener alternative, decades of advocacy and hundreds of billions of dollars in investment have yielded meager results.”*
I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt for the moment, but if it’s using 200kWh to produce a single gallon of gasoline it won’t be good use of the energy. A whole lot more explanation is needed for this one.
chill633 on
>III. We Synthesize Fuel
>The captured CO₂ and hydrogen are combined to create methanol. **The methanol is then converted into gasoline using established chemical processes.**
3 Comments
Earlier this month, Aircela announced it had created the world’s first functional machine capable of generating real, usable car gasoline “directly from the air.” The new device, roughly the size of a commercial refrigerator, combines direct air capture (DAC) with on-site fuel synthesis to create gasoline using just air, water, and renewable energy. No fossil fuels, the company says, are required.
My early-warning BS radar went off big time when I read, *”And while electric vehicles have been heralded as a greener alternative, decades of advocacy and hundreds of billions of dollars in investment have yielded meager results.”*
I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt for the moment, but if it’s using 200kWh to produce a single gallon of gasoline it won’t be good use of the energy. A whole lot more explanation is needed for this one.
>III. We Synthesize Fuel
>The captured CO₂ and hydrogen are combined to create methanol. **The methanol is then converted into gasoline using established chemical processes.**
That’s the [Mobile MTG Process](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/methanol-to-gasoline-process#:~:text=Methanol%20is%20first%20dehydrated%20on,catalyst%20topology%20and%20reaction%20conditions) and there’s a lot of heavy lifting being done by that sentence. Aircela makes methanol by direct atmosphere carbon capture, water electrolysis to create hydrogen, combine the captured CO2 and H2 to make methanol (CH3OH), then the “established chemical process”.