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Sustainable transport fuels produced

from atmospheric carbon dioxide and hydrogen

Introduction

There are three basic routes that might be adopted to meet the needs for transportation fuel supply in a world where fossil fuels are becoming increasingly expensive and in short supply, these are:

                         1) hydrogen, 2) biofuels and 3) synthetic hydrocarbons.

The third route is the synthesis of fuels by the gasification of carbon containing materials to form a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, called Syn Gas, followed by the reaction of the gas mixture via the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process to produce a hydrocarbon mixture. The synthetic fuels made via FT have the advantage of being straight replacements for the current transport fuels and would not therefore involve a change in the market infrastructure.  To date, the limited commercial use of FT has used coal or natural gas as the carbon feedstock, but for a sustainable supply of fuel the carbon feedstock will have to be from renewable resources. The carbon feedstock might be any biomass material, but it is dubious if enough biomass will be available throughout the world to meet the world’s fuel needs.

The Syn Gas that may be derived from many carbon sources requires the H/C ratio of the mixture to be adjusted to the optimum. One way to do this is via the water-gas shift reaction:

CO + H₂0 <=> CO₂ + H₂

A consequence of this reversible reaction is the recognition that CO2 alone could be the carbon feedstock, which when mixed with hydrogen could be used in an FT reaction to make fuels. The obvious source of the carbon dioxide is the atmosphere. The key step that is required is an economic route to extracting carbon dioxide from the air. The hydrogen component could be produced by electrolysis of water.  Such a fuel production route would bring the following advantages:

1. With renewable energy used to extract the CO2  and electrolyse water, The fuel cycle is carbon neutral.