DIY Synthetic Fuel Part I - Making Syngas And A High Pressure Compressor
Hyperspace Pirate 15:03
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After making Ethanol to power a modified 4-stroke engine and generate electricity, I decided it might be cool to try making some synthetic fuel like Methanol or even Gasoline or Kerosene or other Hydrocarbons. In my opinion, carbon-neutral synthesis of fuels with renewable energy and captured CO2 has more potential than trying to rebuild infrastructure to run off batteries and DC electric power, since all the hardware already exists to burn fuels.
The simplest "Synthetic Fuel" is just Hydrogen made from electrolysis, which can be powered by solar energy, but hydrogen has a very low energy density and it tends to embrittle many types of metal. To get a better energy density, we need to add some carbon. For example, the simplest, lightest hydrocarbon - methane - has an energy density triple that of hydrogen in the gaseous state and doesn't degrade metals. In its liquid state it has about two-thirds the energy density of gasoline.
Methane can be synthesized from Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen (or Carbon Dioxide) at elevated pressure of a nickel catalyst, which is called the "Sabatier Process", and makes water as a biproduct. Most other hydrocarbons (with the exception of maybe Acetylene) can be made by a similar process - CO or CO2 combined with Hydrogen at elevated temperatures and pressures over a metal catalyst to build up a heavier, more complex hydrocarbon molecule.
The combination of carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas can be made from simple carbon and water at high temperatures (close to 1000C), and is known as "Syngas" or Synthesis Gas. The old-timey name for it is "Coal Gas". The advantage of doing this is that it turns Carbon - which is relatively difficult to use as a fuel - into a form that's dramatically easier to burn. Syngas can be stored as-is and used as a fuel, although it's very dangerous because of the carbon monoxide content, so instead it's used as a feedstock for synthesizing heavier fuels.
I was originally planning to synthesize Methanol from Syngas using a Cu-ZnO-Al2O3 catalyst, but I think I'll focus on heavier fuels instead in part II of this video series using the "Fischer-Tropsch" process, which is a term for one of several potential fuel synthesis reactions that use syngas along with a high pressure, high temperature catalyst.
To generate the high pressures needed (50-100 bar, or even more), I modified a 12V DC compressor made for filling scuba or paintball tanks so that it was able to fill my tanks with the syngas. I used an aluminum paintball tank meant for CO2 and filled it to 1,000 psi with the mixture.
The carbon source could also be from atmospheric CO2 capture, although since that provided CO2 instead of carbon monoxide, it can be more difficult to process for some reactions since CO2 doesn't react as readily. Being able to crack ordinay carbon into useable feedstock is still very valuable though, since basically any biomass could be used, like the charcoal left behind after wood pyrolysis.
In the next part of this video series I'll show how to make the catalysts and a high-pressure heated reaction chamber to perform the fuel synthesis.
After making Ethanol to power a modified 4-stroke engine and generate electricity, I decided it might be cool to try making some synthetic fuel like Methanol or even Gasoline or Kerosene or other Hydrocarbons. In my opinion, carbon-neutral synthesis of fuels with renewable energy and captured CO2 has more potential than trying to rebuild infrastructure to run off batteries and DC electric power, since all the hardware already exists to burn fuels.
The simplest "Synthetic Fuel" is just Hydrogen made from electrolysis, which can be powered by solar energy, but hydrogen has a very low energy density and it tends to embrittle many types of metal. To get a better energy density, we need to add some carbon. For example, the simplest, lightest hydrocarbon - methane - has an energy density triple that of hydrogen in the gaseous state and doesn't degrade metals. In its liquid state it has about two-thirds the energy density of gasoline.
Methane can be synthesized from Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen (or Carbon Dioxide) at elevated pressure of a nickel catalyst, which is called the "Sabatier Process", and makes water as a biproduct. Most other hydrocarbons (with the exception of maybe Acetylene) can be made by a similar process - CO or CO2 combined with Hydrogen at elevated temperatures and pressures over a metal catalyst to build up a heavier, more complex hydrocarbon molecule.
The combination of carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas can be made from simple carbon and water at high temperatures (close to 1000C), and is known as "Syngas" or Synthesis Gas. The old-timey name for it is "Coal Gas". The advantage of doing this is that it turns Carbon - which is relatively difficult to use as a fuel - into a form that's dramatically easier to burn. Syngas can be stored as-is and used as a fuel, although it's very dangerous because of the carbon monoxide content, so instead it's used as a feedstock for synthesizing heavier fuels.
I was originally planning to synthesize Methanol from Syngas using a Cu-ZnO-Al2O3 catalyst, but I think I'll focus on heavier fuels instead in part II of this video series using the "Fischer-Tropsch" process, which is a term for one of several potential fuel synthesis reactions that use syngas along with a high pressure, high temperature catalyst.
To generate the high pressures needed (50-100 bar, or even more), I modified a 12V DC compressor made for filling scuba or paintball tanks so that it was able to fill my tanks with the syngas. I used an aluminum paintball tank meant for CO2 and filled it to 1,000 psi with the mixture.
The carbon source could also be from atmospheric CO2 capture, although since that provided CO2 instead of carbon monoxide, it can be more difficult to process for some reactions since CO2 doesn't react as readily. Being able to crack ordinay carbon into useable feedstock is still very valuable though, since basically any biomass could be used, like the charcoal left behind after wood pyrolysis.
In the next part of this video series I'll show how to make the catalysts and a high-pressure heated reaction chamber to perform the fuel synthesis.
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