Scientists create clean fuel from thin air

Inexhaustible energy supply will ‘help avoid climate destruction’, say University of Cambridge scientists

The new method can transform waste gas into clean fuel using sunlight (iStock/ Getty Images)

Researchers have discovered how to create clean, sustainable fuels using only carbon dioxide captured from the air and energy from the Sun.

A team from the University of Cambridge used a solar-powered reactor to transform CO₂ from real-world sources into an inexhaustible energy supply, which they say can be developed for use at an industrial scale.

The research took inspiration from carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems, which until now has captured CO₂ in order to pump it into underground storage.

“Instead of storing CO₂ underground, like in CCS, we can capture it from the air and make clean fuel from it,” said Dr Motiar Rahaman from the university’s Department of Chemistry.

“This way, we can cut out the fossil fuel industry from the process of fuel production, which can hopefully help us avoid climate destruction.”

The solar-driven technology is able to actively capture CO₂ from either industrial processes, such as flue gas, or directly from the air.

By passing the gas through an alkaline solution, the researchers were able to concentrate the CO₂ to make it easier to convert into syngas fuel using sunlight.

Adding plastic waste to the system enabled the team to create useful chemicals like glycolic acid, which is widely used in the cosmetics industry.

“This solar-powered system takes two harmful waste products – plastic and carbon emissions – and converts them into something truly useful,” said co-first author Dr Sayan Kar.

“The fact that we can effectively take CO₂ from air and make something useful from it is special. It’s satisfying to see that we can actually do it using only sunlight.”

The research was detailed in a study, titled ‘Integrated Capture and Solar-driven Utilisation of CO₂ from Flue Gas and Air’, published in the scientific journal Joule on Monday.

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