Researchers Find a Way to Pull Carbon Out of The Air And Turn It Into Jet Fuel

[Curious layman]

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The start of electric aviation is upon us, but it's going to take many more years before the average environmentalist can fly guilt free on a fully electric long haul jet.

In the meantime, scientists are trying to make the commercial planes we already have more sustainable, and one of the best ways to do that is to change the fuel they consume.

https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-find-way-to-pull-carbon-out-of-the-air-and-make-it-jet-fuel

[iNow]

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That is, if it proves to work on a larger scale. <...> The amount of liquid fuel produced is still far too small to power an actual airplane, but if the carbon can be captured from the air in high-enough volume, converted into energy at great enough efficiency and then re-emitted, a plane could theoretically fly 'carbon neutral'.

That's a great big gigantic humongous "IF" in that statement. Cool work, but I'll withhold enthusiasm until I see this working at-scale and creating a volume of fuel sufficient for jet powered flight. 

[Curious layman]

29 minutes ago, iNow said:

That's a great big gigantic humongous "IF" in that statement. Cool work, but I'll withhold enthusiasm until I see this working at-scale and creating a volume of fuel sufficient for jet powered flight. 

I was thinking maybe they could apply its use in stages. So maybe just a 20 % reduction at first, then 30 and so on. 

I think small, lighter aircraft would be better. Like a powered glider type.

[iNow]

I think a big factor here will be point of manufacture... where they do the refining, as it were. If they can setup facilities on the ground in multiple locations, then that's promising. I just don't yet know the front-end costs of setting up those facilities to produce at scale, or if it will be cost-effective / business worthy to do so.

Cool tech for sure, though!

[swansont]

"By adding heat to the system, engineers were able to combine carbon dioxide with hydrogen, split from water, to produce a few grams of liquid fuel that the authors say could work in a jet engine. "

 

Sooooo where does that heat come from? How are they splitting the hydrogen?

The article is rather coy about the conservation of energy issues with this.

 

[John Cuthber]

"Researchers Find a Way to Pull Carbon Out of The Air And Turn It Into Jet Fuel"
Grow plants and burn seed oil?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_biofuel_demonstrations

 

[studiot]

3 hours ago, Curious layman said:

fully electric long haul jet.

An electric jet  ???

Whatever next.

 

Just reading the intro calls into question the credibility of the source.

No offence meant CL, you sometimes post some very interesting finds.

[Curious layman]

3 hours ago, studiot said:

An electric jet ???

Whatever next.

 

Just reading the intro calls into question the credibility of the source.

No offence meant CL, you sometimes post some very interesting finds.

Haha, non taken. 

Is it really a that far fetched?

I've read loads about Airbus and Boeing talk about electric jets. Hybrid will be first, but they always say their working towards full electric.

Maybe not for the big long haul flights, but what about local short haul flights?

 

All the best,

Zhur. 🙂

[MigL]

56 minutes ago, Curious layman said:

I've read loads about Airbus and Boeing talk about electric jets. Hybrid will be first, but they always say their working towards full electric.

Just making themselves seem environmentally friendly; full electric will only haul batteries, not very many people.

5 hours ago, swansont said:

Sooooo where does that heat come from? How are they splitting the hydrogen?

Reminds me of early environmentalists, 40-50 years ago, touting electric clean power as opposed to dirty fossil fuels, at a time when a large portion of electric power was produced by burning coal !