Synthetic Fuel

[david.g.chapman]

I am pretty sure that the availability of petrol for our cars will continue for some time, but I was wondering about progress on synthetic fuel suitable for our cars.
I believe from the internet that the technology exists to extract hydrogen from water using electrolysis, and then combined with carbon from the atmosphere to give you the hydrocarbon of your choice (sounds easy the way I put it)!

If the demand it there perhaps it can be made affordable for long term use in classic cars etc.

Has anyone any more information they might want to illuminate the forum with?

Dave Chapman.

[HampshireMush]

Hi Dave

I worked in the Synthetic fuel business for quite a while and currently the major source is from product using the Fischer Tropsch reaction. This was used by the Germans during the war and also the South Africans (SASOL) originating during the the time when they had 'difficulty' with supplies due to the apartheid situation and continuing to this day. Generally FT makes very good diesel - high cetane and zero sulphur - but the gasoline produced was normally of low octane rating but can be converted into higher octane product depending upon the Catalyst and processing steps.

There are currently plants producing fairly larger quantities of product from natural gas in Qatar, Malaysia, Nigeria etc and the big players are Shell and SASOL. They are all mainly providing Diesel / Jet Fuel.

There are smaller facilities producing from all sorts of feedstocks including coal and animal fats etc. Basically if it has a carbon base you can gasify it and make fuel out of it but it is all down to costs as the bigger plants cost many Billions and the 'cleaner' the base stock ie natural gas the cheaper and easier it is.

The diesel / jet fuel produced is really special and generally is blended with conventional product and sold as high spec fuels such as Shell's V Power or used as Jet Fuel as it can be comparatively easy to produce 'special' military spec Jet Fuel.

There are all sorts of other processes including as you state electrolysis and even direct conversion using plasma technology but currently they have not been cost effective but could well be in the future.

I was primarily working with the FT process but am now enjoying my retirement!

Hope that helps and hopefully someone will have more info on the type of process that you mention but you might get little info due to confidentiality etc!!

John

[david.g.chapman]

Thanks for a fascinating answer John. I had hoped that such a question would unleash some of the vast expertise lurking on this forum!

So it looks as if there is a multi-threaded research effort to come up with commercially viable alternatives to liquid fossil fuels. I hope the research follows through as it still looks as if the energy density of liquid fuels exceeds anything else in the near future at least....

...and of course it can run our classic cars.

If such a future fuel can be made carbon neutral as well then it would hopefully give everyone a warm feeling and keep the environmentalists at bay!

Dave.

[Foxie]

Hampshire Mush

As a (retired ) engineer I had no idea about all this, seems there is a lot to learn !

Thanks !

[HampshireMush]

I first got interested in the SynFuels business some 25 years ago when I was an Asset Manager for a major oil company looking to develop a remote gas field with no - at that time - economic way of monetising the resources.

As an engineer I was fascinated by what was going on ' behind the scenes' and indeed the company I was working for had some serious research projects of their own going on as well as looking to licence technology from other companies.

I was put on their 'steering committee' as we had the need for the technology and other groups had the ideas but little in the way of budget funds which we did have. One thing I found early on is that there are some fabulously talented scientists out there but they need to be controlled as otherwise they will spend a fortune on developing technology that was just not then - and possibly never will be - economical to actually build and operate!

After taking an early retirement package from them I started working for a SynFuels technology provider that was looking to develop its technology and buy into remote gas fields that had little possibility of being monetised using conventional technology.

I was their civilian project manager on a joint civil / military program that aimed to develop a 'single battlefield fuel' and that covers everything from buses on bases to tanks to ships and aircraft including types that require highly specialised fuel. FT was one of the only ways of achieving this and we manufactured and tested quite large volumes of fuel.

As I said before there are ways of making some superb fuels but there are also a lot of problems as well such as the lack of lubricity in the diesel product and fuel system seals from older systems drying out.

The biggest hurdle is cost and some of the really great concepts in theory don't look so good when your energy costs to produce cost more than you can sell the product for!

But as times change I'm sure some of them will become economical and it will - like a lot of things in the past - probably be driven by military needs. If you can not defend yourself because you have no fuel to put in your planes then the cost per gallon of product becomes of little concern.

John