Sandia National Laboratory team achieves breakthrough process to make biofuels from sunlight and CO2; new technique reverses combustion at potentially viable cost

In New Mexico, a research team at Sandia National Laboratories has developed a new device for converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into biofuels. The process, which essentially reverses the combustion process, has been often proposed as a fuel production alternative but dismissed as too expensive. The rising cost of oil and the development of a new process has revived hopes for the S2P project, or Sunlight to Petrol.

The prototype device, called the Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5, for short), will break a carbon-oxygen bond in the carbon dioxide to form carbon monoxide and oxygen in two distinct steps.

The Sandia research team calls this approach “Sunshine to Petrol” (S2P). “Liquid Solar Fuel” is the end product — the methanol, gasoline, or other liquid fuel made from water and the carbon monoxide produced using solar energy.

CR5 inventor Rich Diver says the original idea for the device was to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen could then fuel a potential hydrogen economy. The Sandia researchers came up with the idea to use the CR5 to break down carbon dioxide, just as it would water.

Over the past year they have shown proof of concept and are completing a prototype device that will use concentrated solar energy to reenergize carbon dioxide or water, the products of combustion. This will form carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, which ultimately could be used to synthesize liquid fuels in an integrated S2P system.

Sandia manager Ellen Stechel said that researchers have known for a long time that theoretically it might be possible to recycle carbon dioxide, but many thought it could not be made practical, either technically or economically.

“This invention, though probably a good 15 to 20 years away from being on the market, holds a real promise of being able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions while preserving options to keep using fuels we know and love,” she said. “Recycling carbon dioxide into fuels provides an attractive alternative to burying it.”

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