Hydro-carbon fuels from sunlight

[Andres125sx]

I´ve just seen in tv this project, sun-to-liquid, and it looks unbelieveble

This is the web, from my ignorant point of view it looks too good to be true, so I´d like to know the opinion of people with more knownledge than myself in this field (wich includes the vast mayority of people )

https://www.sun-to-liquid.eu/

[Big Tea]

I´ve just seen in tv this project, sun-to-liquid, and it looks unbelieveble

This is the web, from my ignorant point of view it looks too good to be true, so I´d like to know the opinion of people with more knownledge than myself in this field (wich includes the vast mayority of people )

https://www.sun-to-liquid.eu/

I mentioned it a while back in the electric car thread. there seem to be several on the go

https://www.power-technology.com/featur ... -sunlight/

[Just_a_fan]

1 square kilometre of "factory" required to make 20,000 litres a day. So just over 6 days output from 1 square kilometre will fill a 787 Dreamliner for one maximum range flight..

An area equivalent to Switzerland required to keep all current airliners flying "CO2 free".

This is a nice idea but the scaling is going to be "fun", although I could see this being a worthwhile export scheme for African nations benefiting from lots of solar insolation. If it can move the world away from the insidious influence of the House of Saud, I'd say it's worthwhile for that alone.

[Big Tea]

1 square kilometre of "factory" required to make 20,000 litres a day. So just over 6 days output from 1 square kilometre will fill a 787 Dreamliner for one maximum range flight..

An area equivalent to Switzerland required to keep all current airliners flying "CO2 free".

This is a nice idea but the scaling is going to be "fun", although I could see this being a worthwhile export scheme for African nations benefiting from lots of solar insolation. If it can move the world away from the insidious influence of the House of Saud, I'd say it's worthwhile for that alone.

That area is if it is one 'thickness'. once (if?) it gets developed enough it will take far less than that (still a lot though)
There is also the other end of this that it takes Co2 out of the air to use, so it 'saves double' so to speak.

[Just_a_fan]

There is plenty of space to put the current "inefficient" system to use. There is a lot of sunny land in Africa. This would be a way for Africa to actively benefit. No doubt any plants will be in places like the US and the current oil rich Middle East.

[Big Tea]

There is plenty of space to put the current "inefficient" system to use. There is a lot of sunny land in Africa. This would be a way for Africa to actively benefit. No doubt any plants will be in places like the US and the current oil rich Middle East.

They do not have to be on land

[Just_a_fan]

No, but there is lots of land in parts of Africa where there is sun and nothing else. So African nations could produce their own fuel, allowing development without the ties to foreign governments such as the US, China, Saudi etc.

I see this as a positive.

Now imagine a world without a reliance on Middle Eastern theocracies for oil. How much better would that be? Fewer oil-derived conflicts for a start.

[Cold Fussion]

1 square kilometre of "factory" required to make 20,000 litres a day. So just over 6 days output from 1 square kilometre will fill a 787 Dreamliner for one maximum range flight..

An area equivalent to Switzerland required to keep all current airliners flying "CO2 free".

This is a nice idea but the scaling is going to be "fun", although I could see this being a worthwhile export scheme for African nations benefiting from lots of solar insolation. If it can move the world away from the insidious influence of the House of Saud, I'd say it's worthwhile for that alone.

That area is if it is one 'thickness'. once (if?) it gets developed enough it will take far less than that (still a lot though)
There is also the other end of this that it takes Co2 out of the air to use, so it 'saves double' so to speak.

It isn't really saving double if you just re-combust the fuel you make.

[Just_a_fan]

Indeed, it's carbon neutral at best.

[Andres125sx]

Emissions from this fuel are similar to oil-based fuel? Fair question, just out of curiosity


Anycase I agree only reducing dependency from midlle east countries will be a great step forward. Now there´s a real option to stop using any petrol, electric cars (at least with next generation batteries), and for jet planes wich can´t be replaced with an electric motor we can make kerosene from air and sunlight. If someone would have said this 20 years ago, he´d have been confined into a mad house

[Cold Fussion]

I wonder if hydrogen combustion jet engines will ever be a viable replacement.

[nzjrs]

I mentioned it a while back in the electric car thread. there seem to be several on the go

https://www.power-technology.com/featur ... -sunlight/

This is the same project AFAICT, with spin-outs coming from the same original research group and overlapping or financed by the same EU supported project.

[Just_a_fan]

Emissions from this fuel are similar to oil-based fuel? Fair question, just out of curiosity

Burning this kerosene will be the same as burning naturally sourced kerosene (cracked from oil from the ground). There might be less sulphur etc but it'll still produce NOx etc.

The only benefit is in CO2.

[Just_a_fan]

I wonder if hydrogen combustion jet engines will ever be a viable replacement.

Unlikely. Compressed hydrogen requires a lot of volume - several times that of oil-sourced fuels for the same MJ. Liquid hydrogen is unlikely to be suitable. Neither are going to work for aircraft.

[Cold Fussion]

It also has 3x the specific LHV compared to kerosene so you need less of it in the first place. I think in rocket first stages hydrolox has similar performance to RP1-LOX, and the 1st stage is much more critical on the mass fraction vs a jetliner. I don't think it is out of the question it may someday see use since it's the only real alternative to hydrocarbons.