British engineers create petrol from air and water LiptonCambell: (Reuters) - A small British company has developed a way to create petrol from air and water, technology it hopes may one day contribute to large-scale production of green fuels. Engineers at Air Fuel Synthesis (AFS) in Teeside, northern England, say they have produced 5 liters of synthetic petrol over a period of three months. The technique involves extracting carbon dioxide from air and hydrogen from water, and combining them in a reactor with a catalyst to make methanol. The methanol is then converted into petrol. By using renewable energy to power the process, it is possible to create carbon-neutral fuel that can be used in an identical way to standard petrol, scientists behind the technology say. "It's actually cleaner because it's synthetic," Peter Harrison, chief executive officer of AFS, said in an interview. "You just make what you need to make in terms of the contents of it, so it doesn't contain what might be seen as pollutants, like sulphur," he said. The work is part of a two-year project that has so far cost around 1 million pounds ($1.6 million). The green petrol will not appear on forecourts any time soon, though. "We can't make (the petrol) at pump prices, but we will do eventually," Harrison said. "All we need is renewable energy to make it, and so when oil becomes a problem we will be able to make a contribution to keep cars moving or to keep aeroplanes moving." AFS said it was confident the technology could be scaled up to refinery size in the future. Each of the processes that go into making the fuel already take place separately on an industrial scale. For now, however, AFS plans to build a commercial plant in the next two years that will produce around 1,200 liters a day of specialist fuels for the motorsports sector, Harrison said. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/19/us-science-petrol-idUSBRE89I0V720121019 --- Thoughts? This sounds pretty cool, though i doubt it's all that great for the environment...  duncan124: Crap intended for ethnic Germans with mental health problems about money living in Britain. It shows the BBC is spying on people through the local national radio stations. The BBC and its cronys in the civil service are racist and are trying to find out what is going on in the rest of the world. duncan124: Unlike the BBC, who don't use their own money. "The work is part of a two-year project that has so far cost around 1 million pounds ($1.6 million)." Notice that the money was spent on a different project. I guess somebody from the unions wants something political to happen because its was Halloween. In case you don't know the science was new or relevant just before the Archduke was assassinated and in fact was mentioned at one of the international meetings named after the city were it was in the Former Yugoslavia.  PIWINK: I've already got a hydroden generater that works with damp air but not in the rain or a sunny day. Smog may boost the process but dont have any where I live to test with. I get tired of pouring my bottled water in my air cleaner but I still dont like walking. The creek is already going dry going dry so we need to use sea water if we are going to make this work. Un-salted sea water but for now a dollor a gallon is cheaper till we all get thirsty.  Corwin: Ummmmm............. Yeah. Here Winkie-dinkie, I'll give you a little tutorial about organic chemistry... and Newton's Second Law of Thermodynamics for that matter. 1 - Where do you think petrol usually comes from? It comes from oil. 2 - Where does oil come from? It is made from decayed vegetation. 3 - What does vegetation feed off of? Air and water.... and one heck of a lot of Solar Energy. So, ergo, when we burn petrol, we are essentially releasing that Solar Energy that was required to combine the elements Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen together to form those organic compounds..... so fuel is really just a battery of sorts - a form of stored energy. Now, a generator that would make it's own fuel and have energy left over in the exchange, would be an impossibility according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, it only transfers from one form to another... but no closed system is entirely efficient, and there will always be energy dissipated in the exchange. So, in simple terms... it will require more energy to create the fuel, than the energy released when you utilize the fuel. There is no such thing as a "Free Lunch". You can make fuel out of air and water using a tremendous amount of energy... but you can't make energy out of air and water.... sorry. PIWINK: A gain of almost double gas milage and enough tourqe to make havic out of cruse control is not what cost so much. Its the geting past all the ones like you who are hung up on written laws of science. I can tell you that I do not pretend to know any laws of science, therefore am not bound to its boundries. I did not ask for help, only understanding. Corwin: Having no understanding of the laws of physics doesn't give one the ability to disobey them.  Illuminatist: Technically speaking, if you CAN "disobey" a "law of physics", then I guess it wasn't really a law, then was it?  CoIin: My recommendation is that Illuminatist begins his gallant quest to defy the laws of physics by jumping off a high building Corwin: That should work. As long as he has no understanding of gravity, then it shouldn't apply to him.... he should be able to fly around like Superman. PIWINK: Gravity or is it air pressure that holds us down. Its not that hard if a turkey can fly. Magnets can reverse polarity and push right away from greater force than gravity. Flight is a electric thing like all molecular stuctured changes. Just a little heat and up you go in a balloon. Its not gravity holding its pushing, radiating outward. Its negitive Ion. Up-grade its 2012 not 2000. Corwin: Oh, and hey... while we're ignoring the Second Law of Thermodynamics, I suggest that LLumi-dude constructs a perpetual-motion-engine. All he has to do is have an electrical engine power a generator that provides the electricity to power the electrical engine...... Oooh.... I've just given away the secret.  Illuminatist: CoIin: My recommendation is that Illuminatist begins his gallant quest to defy the laws of physics by jumping off a high building 11 hours ago • Report Didn't you try that once? I don't think it turned out well.. CoIin: But seriously folks... I came across this interesting passage today.... (and thought of Corvin's post above) "It is now known that the Brownian particle is a perpetual motion machine of the second kind and that its existence refutes the phenomenological second law" The source is reliable. But I don't know enough science to understand this. Can anyone explain? | Science Chat Room 1 Person Chatting Similar Conversations |
