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Eng. Aldo Steinfeld showed a scale model of the revolutionary system, but for global needs the industrial plant must be 0.5% of the Sahara
Scientists have announced that they have invented a technology that creates fuel from sunlight and air, writes the British “Independent”.
The new system works outdoors, not in specialized laboratories. The technology is part of large-scale plans for new ways to produce fuels to help reduce the 8 percent of humanity’s carbon emissions from aviation and shipping.
One option is to obtain substances that work like kerosene and diesel, but are created in a synthetic way without water and carbon dioxide and with the use of solar energy.
Engineer Aldo Steinfeld and his colleagues assembled a working version of the roof system at the Technical University of Zurich, where the research was conducted. It consists of three main parts – an apparatus that
captures carbon
dioxide and
water from the air,
a device that uses solar energy to convert these substances into a mixture of carbon monoxide and oxygen, and another device that converts this gas into liquid hydrocarbons or methanol so that they can be used as a carbon neutral fuel.
When burned, it emits exactly the same amount of carbon dioxide as was previously extracted from the air for its production. Under normal sunlight, the experimental plant produces 32 milliliters of methanol in 7 hours.
If the system is designed to be large enough and large enough, it could meet the needs for far less green kerosene used for aircraft and ships. However, they will be needed
huge
production
power
The authors estimate that in order to meet the global demand for aviation, which in 2019 consumed 419 billion liters of kerosene, you need an industrial plant of 45,000 square kilometers, or as much as 0.5% of the Sahara Desert.
In the beginning, fuel will be significantly more expensive than kerosene. Therefore, it is necessary to provide financial support for the initial investment, as well as to support the project politically, say the creators of the system.
Details of the engineers’ research were published Thursday in the journal Nature.
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