Vehicles that produce recyclable carbon
Students at Georgia Tech will be driving cars with the aim of running on fossil fuels but don't release tons of carbon into the environment. It's all part of the universities long-term plan to develop vehicles that produce recyclable carbon. Eventually they hope to eliminate fossil fuel from the equation, but in the meantime they are working with an engine that traps carbon emissions for dumping off and recycling at fuel stations. Let's hope they model it on this Swiss zero-emissions car called SAM, which looked cool but was discontinued due to lack of funds. The Georgia Tech team’s goal is to create a sustainable transportation system that uses a liquid fuel and traps the carbon emission in the vehicle for later processing at a fueling station. The carbon would then be shuttled back to a processing plant where it could be transformed into liquid fuel. Currently, Georgia Tech researchers are developing a fuel processing device to separate the carbon and store it in the vehicle in liquid form.
How does the carbon-collecting strategy work? A release from Georgia Tech says:
Georgia Tech's near-future strategy involves capturing carbon emissions from conventional (fossil) liquid hydrocarbon-fueled vehicles with an onboard fuel processor designed to separate the hydrogen in the fuel from the carbon. Hydrogen is then used to power the vehicle, while the carbon is stored on board the vehicle in a liquid form until it is disposed at a refueling station. It is then transported to a centralized site to be sequestered in a permanent location currently under investigation by scientists, such as geological formations, under the oceans or in solid carbonate form. In the long-term strategy, the carbon dioxide will be recycled forming a closed-loop system, involving synthesis of high energy density liquid fuel suitable for the transportation sector.
