Researchers in Switzerland have developed carbon-neutral, sustainable versions of diesel and aviation fuel using only carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight as inputs. This is the first time fuel has been manufactured in a power generator rather than a laboratory. In 2017, the team began scaling up their design and built a solar fuel production plant at the IMDEA Energy Institute in Spain.
According to Newsweek, researchers discovered that solar-produced kerosene, or jet fuel, is fully compatible with the current method of storing, distributing, and using fuel in a plane’s engine. According to the team, it can also be blended with fossil-derived kerosene.
Furthermore, they explained that the Madrid production plant consists of 169 sun-tracking reflective panels that redirect and concentrate solar radiation into a solar reactor on top of a tower. The concentrated solar energy is then used to power oxidation-reduction (redox) reaction cycles in the solar reactor, which has a porous structure made of ceria, a white or yellow heavy powder.
The ceria then converts the water and carbon dioxide injected into the reactor into syngas (hydrogen and carbon monoxide). The syngas is routed through a gas-to-liquid converter before being converted into liquid hydrocarbon fuels such as kerosene and diesel.
“We are the first to demonstrate the entire thermochemical process chain from water and CO2 to kerosene in a fully-integrated solar tower system,” according to study co-author Professor Aldo Steinfeld.
“With our solar technology, we have demonstrated that we can produce synthetic kerosene from water and CO2 rather than relying on fossil fuels,” he added.
Today, airplanes are said to be responsible for about 5% of global emissions. Their engines run on kerosene or jet fuel, both of which are liquid hydrocarbon fuels derived from crude oil. In today’s world, there is no clean and efficient way to fly planes. As a result, developing carbon-neutral aviation fuels has emerged as a global energy challenge.
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