SUBOC

As the quest for finding alternative sources of energy and ways to combat global warming mounts, a research team from Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico is building a prototype device intended to chemically “reenergise” carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide using concentrated solar energy to reverse combustion.

The carbon monoxide could then be used to make hydrogen or serve as a building block to synthesise a liquid combustible fuel, such as methanol or even gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

The prototype device, called the Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5, for short), will break a carbon-oxygen bond in the carbon dioxide to form carbon monoxide and oxygen in two distinct steps. It is a major piece of an approach to converting carbon dioxide into fuel from sunlight.

The Sandia scientists calls this approach “Sunshine to Petrol” (S2P). “Liquid Solar Fuel” is the end product — the methanol, gasoline, or other liquid fuel made from water and the carbon monoxide produced using solar energy.

Laboratory experiments have proved that the process works, and they hope to finish the prototype by April. Although the ideas are not economically viable yet and 15 to 20 years from viability on an industrial scale, it is a project of great significance, contributory in the proactive sense, to major challenges facing life on our planet.

Sources:
(1) http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/S2P
(2) http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/sunshine.html