Gasoline and Diesel from Air, Water, a Little Wind and Sunshine…

[xcel]

Small UK concern says they have created synthetic fuel to replace fossil fuels.

Wayne Gerdes - CleanMPG - Oct. 19, 2012

The Ra Ra investor push via infomercial in its full glory… Not sure why they did not have a musical accompaniment from Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” or something similar?

Air Fuel Synthesis (AFS) announced that it is now producing carbon-neutral gasoline as a practical drop-in synthetic and a complete alternative to fossil fuels. This latest development is part of the company’s continuing R&D program at a unique demonstrator facility in Teesside, England.

The company initially proved its fuel reactor technology in April 2012 by producing methanol fuel which in turn is producing gasoline from carbon dioxide and hydrogen which in their basic forms is somewhat easy to do. What is interesting however is where the company received the H2 and CO2 feedstock’s from.

CO2 from the air, H2 from water ... Methanol from CO2 and H2 ... Gasoline or Diesel after that

The “business” if you can call it that has gone from an idea to an operational fuel-from-air demonstration facility producing a variety of carbon-neutral synthetic hydrocarbon fuels. With the initial production run proving fuel production feasibility (not financial feasibility), the company is now planning to build a small commercial facility to prove the economics.

AFS expects carbon from a point source like an oil refiner to be a more economic proposition for its compact, fuel production units, the company has demonstrated its ability to capture CO2 from the atmosphere for use in creating a variety of carbon-neutral fuels with the help of carbon neutral electricity generation from wind or solar. And that is the key to the systems success or failure as anyone can produce H2 from water with enough wind driven electricity but that does not make the process economically promising.

Air Fuel Synthesis Chairman David Still:

“We are now ready to build the first commercial Air Fuel Synthesis production plant making carbon-neutral gasoline. The technology can add to new or existing renewable energy projects, especially where the energy is stranded; where there is a premium for secure liquid fuels for existing vehicles; or for reducing carbon emissions.”

“Investors and partners will enable us to rapidly commercialize our technologies and help customers address fossil oil price volatility and supply constraints as well as the implications of carbon-driven climate change.”

As of today, AFS has provided no cost or renewable power consumption data to make fuel from air and water leaving me with that feeling that this is a pilot program hyped to create investment with little to no product once all is said and done. This is the same feeling I had when Coskata announced a new process in which it was promising $1.00 per gallon ethanol from Biomass feedstock a few years back with pilot plants leading the way to full scale production. That never happened either. At least not yet?

Regarding AFS, their processes can produce gasoline, diesel, Jet fuel, fertilizers or plastics with the feedstock coming from air, water, wind and sunshine. We’ll just have to wait and see how much is hype and how much is reality…

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Uh. They have input with carbon and hydrogen and then they use energy to make hydrocarbons. Ooh. Ok, maybe they some better synthesis method or maybe they're taking the piss. Either way, add to the list of stuff that might be useful one day.

[uRabbit]

Probably won't make it past the cartel. :/

[RedylC94]

Originally Posted by xcel

... The company initially proved its fuel reactor technology in April 2012 by producing methanol ...

... the company has demonstrated its ability to capture CO2 from the atmosphere for use in creating a variety of carbon-neutral fuels with the help of carbon neutral electricity generation from wind or solar. ...

Regarding AFS, their processes can produce gasoline, diesel, Jet fuel, fertilizers or plastics with the feedstock coming from air, water, wind and sunshine. …

Wow! Even more impressive, green plants have demonstrated their "ability to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for creating a variety of carbon-neutral fuels" without the help of expensive electricity.

[wick1ert]

Originally Posted by RedylC94

Wow! Even more impressive, green plants have demonstrated their "ability to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for creating a variety of carbon-neutral fuels" without the help of expensive electricity.

Yes, but if you generate your own electricity from renewable sources to power the project (I know, you'd have to produce a lot of it), you can get closer to self sufficient. Any avenue we can pursue that helps reduce the consumption of oil should at least be looked into. Using plants to do this would require lots of plants, harvesting, etc, that goes along with it, which would consume tons of area as we know just by looking at ethanol. If we can bypass that big expense to land/food supply/etc, I'm all for at least looking into it. At some point, we have to accept a variety of ways to produce the fuels we use.

[herm]

Corn ethanol in the US needs fossil fuels to power the tractors, make fertilizer and dry up the ethanol etc.. probably half the fuel bill is to remove the water, slightly wet ethanol (first pass thru, better than 150 proof) is much cheaper and can also be used by cars, but not mixed with gasoline. Its sold on the pump in Brazil.

[herm]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

Fermentation, distillation and dehydration
See also: Ethanol fermentation and Azeotropic distillation

The resulting molasses are treated to become a sterilized molasse free of impurities, ready to be fermented. In the fermentation process sugars are transformed into ethanol by addition of yeast. Fermentation time varies from four to twelve hours resulting in an alcohol content of 7-10% by total volume (°GL), called fermented wine. The yeast is recovered from this wine through a centrifuge. Making use of the different boiling points the alcohol in the fermented wine is separated from the main resting solid components. The remaining product is hydrated ethanol with a concentration of 96°GL,[86] the highest concentration of ethanol that can be achieved via azeotropic distillation, and by national specification can contain up to 4.9% of water by volume.[87] This hydrous ethanol is the fuel used by ethanol-only and flex vehicles in the country. Further dehydration is normally done by addition of chemicals, up to the specified 99.7°GL in order to produce anhydrous ethanol,[86] which is used for blending with pure gasoline to obtain the country's E25 mandatory blend.[18] The additional processing required to convert hydrated into anhydrous ethanol increases the cost of the fuel, as in 2007 the average producer price difference between the two was around 14% for São Paulo State.[79] This production price difference, though small, contributes to the competitiveness of the hydrated ethanol (E100) used in Brazil, not only with regard to local gasoline prices but also as compared to other countries such as the United States and Sweden, that only use anhydrous ethanol for their flex fuel fleet.[88]