Alternative Energies
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Title: Audi creates green 'e-diesel fuel of the future' using just carbon dioxide and water
Source:
International Business Times, UK
URL Source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/audi-creat ... t-carbon-dioxide-water-1498524
Published: Apr 27, 2015
Author: Ewan Palmer
Post Date: 2015-04-27 10:34:58 by Tooconservative
Keywords: None
Views: 13188
Comments: 26
German car manufacturer Audi says it has created the "fuel of the future" made solely from water, carbon dioxide and renewable sources. The synthetic "e-diesel" was made following a commissioning phase of just four months at a plant in Dresden, Germany. Unlike regular diesel, the clear fuel does not contain any sulphur or fossil oil, while it has an overall energy efficiency of around 70%. Germany's federal minister of education and research, Dr Johanna Wanka, said she has already used the fuel in her Audi A8, while the company hopes the Dresden factory, operated by clean tech company Sunfire, will produce 160 litres of it every day in the coming months. "This synthetic diesel, made using CO2, is a huge success for our sustainability research," Wanka said. "If we can make widespread use of CO2 as a raw material, we will make a crucial contribution to climate protection and the efficient use of resources, and put the fundamentals of the 'green economy' in place." Creation of the fuel, which Audi and Sunfire are calling blue crude, first requires heating water to 800C (1,472F) to trigger a high temperature electrolysis to break down the steam to hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen then reacts with the CO2 in synthesis reactors, again under pressure and at a high temperature. The reaction product is a liquid made from long‑chain hydrocarbon compounds, known as blue crude. This synthetic fuel, which is free from sulphur and aromatic hydrocarbons, is suitable for mixing with fossil diesel or being used as a fuel in its own right. Reiner Mangold, head of sustainable product development at Audi, said: "In developing Audi e-diesel we are promoting another fuel-based on CO2 that will allow long‑distance mobility with virtually no impact on the climate. Using CO2 as a raw material represents an opportunity not just for the automotive industry in Germany, but also to transfer the principle to other sectors and countries." Poster Comment: One of a number of promising alt energy technologies on the horizon.
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#3. To: TooConservative, All (#0)
Oh God, not this old and very tired Fischer-Tropsch technology BS again. The world seems to be full of idiots.
This is different. F-T maxed out at 700°F. This process runs to 1400° for the hydrolysis. I assume they've changed the catalyst type as well. So this is not your daddy's F-T process.
Go get 'em, Champ.
#8. To: SOSO (#7)
Since you are hungry to learn more: 14 November 2014 Audi is active in the development of CO2-neutral, synthetic fuels; the company already has projects underway with Joule in the US for the development and testing of synthetic ethanol and synthetic diesel (earlier post); has an e-gas project underway in Werlte, Germany (earlier post); and has a new partnership with Global Bioenergies on bio-isooctane (bio-gasoline) (earlier post). Audi’s latest e-fuels project is participation in a a pilot plant project in Dresden that produces diesel fuel from water, CO2 and green electricity. Audi and project partners including Climeworks and sunfire (earlier post) opened the plant today. The project combines two innovative technologies in this project, which is funded in part by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research and was preceded by a two-year research and preparation phase: direct capture of CO2 from ambient air and a power‑to‑liquid process for the production of synthetic fuel. Audi is the exclusive partner in the automotive industry. Other partners in the project consortium include Lufthansa; Fraunhofer ICT; Universität Stuttgart; Forschungszentrum Jülich; GEWI AG; CVT Chemical Engineering; and HGM. The sunfire plant, which operates according to the “power-to-liquid” (PtL) principle, requires carbon dioxide, water and electricity as raw materials. The carbon dioxide is extracted directly from the ambient air using direct air capture (DAC)—a technology developed by Swiss partner Climeworks. The Climeworks CO2 capture technology is based on a cyclic adsorption / desorption process on a novel sorbent. During adsorption, atmospheric CO2 is chemically bound to the sorbent’s surface. Once the sorbent is saturated, the CO2 is driven off the sorbent by heating it to 95 °C, thereby delivering high-purity gaseous CO2. The CO2-free sorbent can be re-used for many adsorption/desorption cycles. Around 90% of the energy demand can be supplied by low-temperature heat; the remaining energy is required in the form of electricity for pumping and control purposes. The patent-pending technology has been developed in collaboration with the Professorship of Renewable Energy Carriers at ETH Zurich. The optimization of the sorbent and scale-up of the sorbent synthesis process is carried out in collaboration with the Swiss Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa). In a separate process, a solid oxide electrolysis (SOEC) unit powered with green electricity splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. (sunfire acquired staxera, a developer and manufacturer of SOFC high-temperature fuel cells sited in Dresden in 2011.) The hydrogen is then reacted with the carbon dioxide in two chemical processes conducted at 220 ÚC and a pressure of 25 bar to produce a hydrocarbon liquid called Blue Crude. The process is up to 70% efficient. As currently built, the pilot plant on the sunfire grounds in Dresden-Reick can produce approximately 160 liters of Blue Crude per day. Nearly 80% of that can be converted into synthetic diesel. This fuel—Audi e‑diesel—is free of sulfur and aromatics, and features a high cetane number. Its chemical properties allow it to be blended in any ratio with fossil diesel—i.e., it can be used as a drop-in fuel. The Audi e‑gas plant in Werlte, Lower Saxony, already produces synthetic methane (Audi e‑gas) in a comparable manner; drivers of the Audi A3 Sportback g‑tron can fill up on it using a special fuel card. (Earlier post.) Audi is also conducting joint research into the synthetic manufacture of Audi e‑gasoline with Global Bioenergies. And a joint project with Joule is striving to produce the synthetic fuels Audi e-diesel and Audi e‑ethanol with the help of microorganisms. With this latest collaboration, Audi said, it and its partners are demonstrating that industrialization of e‑fuels is possible. The pilot plant was officially brought on stream today in the presence of Prof. Dr. Johanna Wanka, German Federal Minister for Education and Research, and Dr. Hagen Seifert, Head of Environmental Assessments, Renewable Energies and New Materials at Audi AG. Stated more bluntly elsewhere: An Audi facility in Dresden began making a small amount of the "e-diesel" this month. Writes Science Alert: "The first step involves harvesting renewable energy from sources such as wind, solar and hydropower. They then use this energy to split water into oxygen and pure hydrogen, using a process known as reversible electrolysis. This hydrogen is then mixed with carbon monoxide (CO), which is created from carbon dioxide (CO2) that's been harvested from the atmosphere. The two react at high temperatures and under pressure, resulting in the production of the long-chain hydrocarbon compounds that make up the blue crude." So, yes, as you said, clean diesel from air and water.
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#4. To: SOSO (#3)
Oh God, not this old and very tired Fischer-Tropsch technology BS again. The world seems to be full of idiots.
#7. To: TooConservative (#4)
So this is not your daddy's F-T process.
Replies to Comment # 7. Audi in new e-fuels project: synthetic diesel from water, air-captured CO2 and green electricity; “Blue Crude”
Top: Two cartoons of the basic sunfire concept and process. PtL = Power-to-Liquids. Bottom: 3D model of sunfire SOEC (left) and the demo plant (right). Source: sunfire. Click to enlarge.
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