Well, we could be growing our own green fuel in the next couple years:
From Nature:
James Dumesic and co-workers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison heated a glucose solution extracted from plant tissues to around 200 °C under pressure. They passed it over a catalyst comprised of tiny platinum particles scattered throughout a matrix of porous aluminium oxide. This process breaks the glucose down into hydrogen, carbon dioxide and small amounts of methane1.
The technique is even more efficient when methanol is used instead of glucose. Methanol and ethanol are already produced as biofuels from plant sources such as corn and wheat. But hydrogen is a better, cleaner fuel.
A type of sugar, glucose is manufactured in vast quantities, for example in corn syrup fermented from corn starch. It provides large amounts of energy and fuels our own metabolic processes. Glucose is also the building block for carbohydrates such as cellulose, which supports plant tissues.
So Dumesic's team hope that their process might work not only with refined glucose, but also with waste plant matter such as wood pulp, straw and stover, the fibrous remains of corn production.
and
Inorganic catalysts such as platinum are more robust than bacterial enzymes, and are also amenable to improvements that give a better yield of hydrogen. Some inorganic catalysts can produce hydrogen from vegetable oils. But the Wisconsin process might also work with raw plant fibres.
Dumesic and colleagues admit that they do not yet have an industrial process on their hands. They need to find a catalyst that is cheaper than platinum, can handle a wider range of starting materials, and produces a better yield of hydrogen - at the moment some of it is squandered in other reaction products. But they are confident that these improvements can be made.
Will this, the latest discovery in a long line of alternative power breakthroughs, make a difference in current modes of engine-building?
And will people (including CEOs) already burned by the past promise of ethanol (which turned out to gum up some engines) be a bit shy about this, related finding?
In other words: how easy do we have to make it before we'll actually stop using petroleum to make the wheels of progress turn?
What does it take to break our gasoline addiction? Can something like this really work on the big scale? |
