.
Super Clean Diesel Oil
from just
Air and Water
Tesla
Cars and Elon Musk have been hogging the Green Lime Light. And I say good
luck to Mr Musk I admire his open patent on his battery technology.
Audi,
yes the car maker, has recently been sounding trumpets and letting
off fireworks in announcing it is a major investor / player along
with two other companies ClimeWorks and SunFire in the advanced
development of an alchemy to create very high quality diesel from
just the air and water.
This is NOT a Spoof
A joke? No, no joke here, it has, to my nose, the smell of
something far more substantial. If the hoopla is not overstated, it might
just prove to be something REALLY BIG in green technology and in saving
the planet.
A
pilot plant is already producing approximately 160 litres or 35
Gallons of so called "Blue Crude" per day with a stated 70% overall
efficiency figure. Nearly 80% of this Blue Crude can be converted
into synthetic diesel.
Very
High Quality Diesel
This
fuel – they are calling Audi e-diesel – is totally free of
sulphur and aromatics. It also has a high cetane number, which means
that it ignites very easily. This means the burn is very good and
clean giving excellent results. The chemical properties of this oil
facilitate its blending with regular diesel.
The
Alchemy Step by Step
(1)
Air in motion = wind. Wind turbines generate green electricity,
(2)
The green electricity is used to to power the splitting water into it
two components Oxygen and Hydrogen,
(3)
A separate plant extracts Carbon Dioxide from the air,
(4)
The Carbon Dioxide is processed into Carbon Monoxide,
(5)
The Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide are then put through two processes
at very high pressure of 25 bar or 363 psi and high temperature of
220C. "Blue Crude" is what comes out the far end.
(6)
The Blue Crude can be processed into various fuels etc.
Not
New Science
The
essential process is not a new concept. What is new is that this
manifestation takes carbon from the atmosphere and uses water as the
basic ingredients. The process was developed by Franz Fischer and
Hans Tropsch at the "Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für
Kohlenforschung" in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, way back in
1925.
The 1925 Fischer–Tropsch
process is a series of chemical reactions that turns a mixture of
carbon monoxide and hydrogen into liquid hydrocarbons. The process
has been explored by various researchers over time. It is only now it
has gone fully GREEN and left the laboratory and been demonstrated as
capable of proving a viable source of low sulphur diesel.
The
Possibilities
If
the Audi - SunFire - Climeworks process can be successfully up-scaled
from a shed in the car park to a facility producing tens of thousands of litres a day and those factories replicated all over the
world, while continuing to make use of the ClimeWorks extraction
process of CO2 from the air as its raw material, it certainly could make an
impact on global CO2 and be a major contribution to climate
protection. Let's just say I am excited and hopeful that this one is a runner.
SunFire
say that their analyses have shown that the synthetic fuel is more
environmentally friendly, and additionally has superior combustion
qualities when compared to regular fuel. This would possibly mean
better starting and better running of the engine, much less pollution
from the exhaust, better fuel efficiency, more engine power.
"The
engine runs quieter and fewer pollutants are being created,"
SunFire Chief Technology Officer Christian von Olshausen says
in a press release.
Cost of this New Super Eco Diesel?
The
Audi announcements suggest that their e-diesel will sell to the
public for between 1 and 1.50 Euros per litre, dependent on the price
of Green Electricity. That should be able to favourably compete with
normal diesel that is if governments don’t tax the ass off it.
"If
we get the first sales order, we will be ready to commercialise our
technology", said von Olshausen.
.
