2/6/15

Audi Makes Synthetic Diesel from Co2 and Water

Audi Makes Synthetic Diesel from Co2 and Water

Working with Joule, Audi has developed a new recipe for renewable diesel fuel: Extract carbon dioxide from the air; use wind and solar green electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and apply high heat and pressure until the hydrogen combines with the CO2 to form "blue crude."
The crude is then converted into pure synthetic diesel fuel, which is free from the sulfur and aromatic contaminants typically found in petroleum diesel. The synthetic diesel fuel also has a high cetane number for easy ignition, and can be blended with fossil diesel. 


However, perhaps the most significant fact about Audi's synthetic diesel is that the fuel is completely carbon neutral. The amount of carbon dioxide released when the fuel is burned equals the amount consumed when the fuel is made.
Synthetic e-diesel is just one element of Audi's e-fuels effort, a project to create renewable and carbon-neutral fuels using environmentally friendly production processes. Audi's project also involves the exploration of other synthetic alternative fuels such as e-ethanol, e-gas (methane) and bio-isooctane (bio-gasoline).
Audi's tests have shown that e-fuels burn more efficiently and produce fewer emissions than petroleum-based products. a glass window so engineers could see how the synthetic fuels performed under actual operating conditions. Part of their testing creates simulated conditions inside an engine in a pressure chamber at up to 15 bar and temperatures of 350 °Celsius. A special camera scans the spray at intervals of 50 microseconds to record how the fuel behaves during the injection process, as only a clean mixture preparation process will assure optimal combustion.
The optical research engine has a glass window so engineers could see how the synthetic fuels performed under actual operating conditions. This test setup reveals the processes that are otherwise hidden by the metal walls of the cylinders. A small window made of quartz glass enables engineers to observe the fuel’s behavior in the cylinder and how it interacts with the airflow in the combustion chamber.
During each of up to 3,000 revolutions per minute in the research engine, a minute amount of fuel shoots into the glass cylinder is compressed and ignited, and the exhaust gas then expelled. The engineers mix a tracer that glows when stimulated with a laser into the e-fuels. The laser-induced fluorescence process thus highlights those places in the glass cylinder that are particularly bright as being where most of the fuel is. Using a high-speed camera, the combustion process is captured with time-lapse photography.  


The investigators found that unlike fossil fuels, the composition of which varies depending on their place of origin, synthetic Audi e-fuels are pure fuels. Thanks to their chemical properties, fewer emissions are generated when they are burned. They do not contain any olefines or aromatic hydrocarbons. As a result, the synthetic fuels assure a more effective mixture preparation process, cleaner combustion and lower emissions.
These processes are still in a developmental phase and large-scale production is a long way off. Liquid e-fuels have an advantage of easily being distributed through the existing vehicle fueling infrastructure.
Audi operates a research facility in Hobbs, New Mexico for the production of e-ethanol and e-diesel in partnership with Joule. At this facility, Joule’s Helioculture platform uses engineered microorganisms which use water (brackish, salt or wastewater), sunlight and carbon dioxide to produce the high-purity fuels.

Audi also has an e-gas project in Werlte, Germany underway as another component of its e-fuels strategy, as well as a new partnership with Global Bioenergies on bio-isooctane (bio-gasoline).

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