Mar 12, 2009

Gasoline From Carbon Dioxide?

What’s the first word in carbon dioxide? No, this is not a trick question. Carbon dioxide begins with carbon, and carbon is the basis of virtually all our fuels, so isn’t it possible to get fuel from that “villain” carbon dioxide? Well, at least one company thinks so. California-based Carbon Sciences says its breakthrough technology can be used to transform carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuel power plants into gasoline to run cars and into jet fuel to fly aircrafts. The company claims its revolutionary biocatalytic process, invented by Dr. Naveed Aslam, its chief technology advisor, can break down CO₂ at low temperature and pressure.

To put this in perspective, the fuels we use today are made up of chains of hydrogen and carbon atoms called hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons naturally occur in fuel sources such as petroleum and natural gas. To create fuel artificially, hydrogen and carbon atoms are bonded together into hydrocarbon molecules. These molecules can then be used as basic building blocks to produce various gaseous and liquid fuels. Carbon dioxide is one of the most prevalent sources of carbon atoms, but unfortunately, it is also one of the most stable molecules. This means that it may require a great deal of energy to break apart CO₂ and extract carbon atoms for making new hydrocarbons, which, in turn, has made CO₂ -- used for fueling transformation technologies --uneconomical in the past. However, Carbon Sciences is developing a proprietary process that requires significantly less energy than other approaches do. The company says it has discovered a low-energy and highly scalable process to transform large quantities of CO₂ into gaseous and liquid fuels using organic biocatalysts. The process, if commercially viable, could transform carbon dioxide from a hoodoo to a boon.