Researchers at EPFL, Switzerland have now come up with a novel solution to this problem: capturing CO2 directly in the trucks’ exhaust system and liquefying it in a box on the vehicle’s roof. The liquid CO2 is then delivered to a service station, where it is turned into conventional fuel using renewable energy. The project is being coordinated by the Industrial Process and Energy Systems Engineering group, led by Francois Marechal, at EPFL’s School of Engineering. The patented concept is the subject of a paper published in Frontiers in Energy Research.
The whole process takes place within a capsule measuring 2 m x 0.9 m x 1.2 m, placed above the driver’s cabin. "The weight of the capsule and the tank is only 7 percent of the vehicle’s payload," adds Marechal. "The process itself uses little energy because all of its stages have been optimized."
This is not the long term solution we need but may be a great way to be short term solution for bigger commercial vehicles at least. What we don’t know yet either is what the commercial cost is expected to be. Much is mentioned about CO2 but nothing about NOx emissions (toxic to human health) which is about 67% of diesel emissions versus CO2 which is about 12%. Diesel also has about 6x to 10x higher particle emissions than gasoline engines.
#environment #airpollution #dirtydiesel
#^Scientists find a way to extract and store CO2 from vehicle exhaust
The fight against climate change has encouraged a group of researchers from Switzerland to device an ingenious method to curb CO2 emissions from commercial vehicles that run on fossil fuels.Transportation is responsible for about 30 per cent of the