how can we convert the car fumes into biofuels?

[jiju thomas]

We are working on a project (district level) to find how car fumes can be converted into biofuels?We were inspired by an article published in a news paper.The article states that exhaust collected from the vechile can be used to generate biofuels with the help of algae.we couldn't get any information related to this.We are really stuck here.We would like to know how the exhaust can be collected and further used to generate biofuel? can all the algaes yield biofuels and what are the steps involved in extracting oil from algae.

Please do help us.

Thank you


KANAK KORI

[Craig_Bridge]

I recommend you first read up on some basic plant biology / metabolism. Algae are small aquatic plants that can utilize various nutrients and will produce various "waste" products. Many of the "waste" products of plants are very useful. For example, CO2 (animal and fossil fuel burning "waste" product) is a nutrient to most plants and the resulting plant "waste" product is O2. So what happens to the carbon? How do you recover it from the plant to produce a "biofuel"? These are current areas of great interest being researched. There is a lot of published information on this which is another area you should read up on; however, without understanding the basic plant metabolism, it won't be easy to understand.

[jiju thomas]

i have read that a box is connected in the lower part of the car to collect the fumes and latter it is used by the algae to make biofuels.Nothing more was given in the article.And it was also given that compared to all other biofuel sources algaes are much more effective in providing biofuels.but i tried for more information on this but i could not get any.If you can kindly provide me with some informations it will be of a great help.

Thank you

kanak Kori

[agm]

I found lots of articles about this with a quick google search for car exhaust algae biofuel.

"how the exhaust can be collected" -- For at least one system (I have no way of knowing whether this is the same thing you read about), they aren't going to tell you what's inside the box because they are starting a company and want to make money from the product:

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceN ... =3&sp=true

Being able to capture exhaust in a small volume is a big deal for the same reason that carrying around enough hydrogen to run a fuel-cell vehicle is difficult: gases take up a huge volume compared to liquids (per molecule at a given temperature and pressure). Their method could involve compressing and/or cooling the exhaust gas into a liquid state, adsorbing it onto a surface, etc. Reading about hydrogen storage techniques would give you more background on these and similar concepts.

"how the exhaust can be ... further used to generate biofuel? can all the algaes yield biofuels"

As Craig_Bridge indicated, carbon dioxide is fuel for plants. The article linked above states that "Through a chemical reaction, the captured gases from the box would be fed to algae, which would then be crushed to produce a bio-oil. This extract can be converted to produce a biodiesel almost identical to normal diesel."

The website below has forums and a blog and is dedicated to the process you are interested in. If you want to actually build a system like this and find out where to acquire a box, what species of algae to use, how to process it to get fuel, etc, you might find people with specific knowledge of it there.

http://www.oilgae.com/
http://www.oilgae.com/blog/
http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2007/11/gree ... fumes.html

Best wishes,
Amanda

[jiju thomas]

Sir,
We are working on a project of adsorption of vehicle exhaust using metal organic framework(MOF 177).Then CO2 is released by mild heating.How to release SO2 and NOx separately so that we can use CO2 for some other purposes.please help us to find a simple solution.

[agm]

Jiju,

1. We ask that you keep all questions related to a topic in a single thread. I'm pretty sure this question is related to this post:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... =29&t=3997

so, moderators, could you combine these topics?

2. I'm not sure whether you're asking about keeping SO2 and NOx from being adsorbed in the first place (whether they are depends on your substrate, but it would be nice if they were never captured so all the substrate's capacity could be used for CO2), or whether your concern is how to isolate CO2 from other adsorbed gases that are all released when the box is emptied. I think it would be a lot easier to collect the gas as a mixture and then separate it instead of trying to develop a scheme so that all CO2 is released before all other gases or vice versa. Plug gas separation into a search engine to learn about this.

3. As I've mentioned before, when you are thinking about a very specific material, process, etc -- such as MOF 177 -- it is very unlikely that any experts are going to be familiar with it, even though we have scientific backgrounds that enable us to understand how things work pretty quickly and explain them to you. It's better for everyone involved if we spend our time thinking about your problem instead of googling terms you have used to try to figure out what you're talking about. For other experts' benefit, here's some info I found:

http://www.physorg.com/news8664.html
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/12 ... ic_fr.html

but it would also be good if you could tell us what you have read about it, what you think is important, why it's the best candidate for the project you have in mind, etc. The first link above states that

MOF-177 ... sops up 140 percent of its weight in CO2 at room temperature and reasonable pressure (32 bar).

I would recommend finding out how much CO2 is put out by, say, a tank of gas and then calculating the mass of MOF-177 you would need to contain it. Assuming 100% capture of CO2 and no capture of other gases should be fine for an initial feasibility check -- but you should also try to find out (a) if other exhaust gases are adsorbed and (b) what the capture efficiency is at different flow rates/temperatures (exhaust is hot, and the gas would have to move through your attachment at the same rate it comes out). If you can find the density of MOF-177, you could also calculate how large the exhaust attachment would have to be. Also, do you know how you will obtain MOF-177?

Amanda

[jiju thomas]

Amanda,
ThankYou for the reply.Actually we were working with a project of converting car fumes into biofuelsand we had a problem of storing car fumesin cylinder for the it seem to be bit costly.Mean time we came across a solution of storing these fumes using MOF177 which has large surface area and MOF is capable of storing CO2,SO2, Methane and even water vapour.Latter this CO2 can be separated from it by mild heating and can be released into a controlled environment where it is utilised by the algaes to produce H2.This was our idea but what actually disturb us is what to do with the other gases which has been collected and how to separeate them from the MOF especially SO2 and NOx.Please help me in this regard.


Thank you

[agm]

I think it would be a lot easier to collect the gas as a mixture and then separate it instead of trying to develop a scheme so that all CO2 is released before all other gases or vice versa. Plug gas separation into a search engine to learn about this.

You could also try gas separation CO2 exhaust, gas separation CO2 SO2, etc, for more specific results.

Two gases can be separated by using membranes that are less permeable to one gas than another, exposing the mixture to another substrate that only adsorbs one of the components, and perhaps other techniques. Unless someone here happens to be familiar with the exact membrane (or substrate, etc) that would do this for your application, you are the one who's going to have to spend some time searching for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_separation
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/s ... n/capture/

You'd probably find it useful to read about catalytic converters. And since vehicles equipped with them emit substantially less SO2 and NOx, you might find that what remains is not necessarily a threat to the algae. If nothing else, perhaps you could process the gas released from the MOF through a second catalytic converter to further reduce the content of unwanted gases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalytic_converter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOx_Adsorbers

You seem to be dealing with at least three difficult tasks: (1) capturing CO2 at the point of exhaust, (2) separating CO2 from other exhaust gases, (3) using CO2 to feed algae and process the algae to produce biofuel. There are many entire research groups (professor + a few post-docs + a number of grad students) around the world each focusing on only one of these issues. If you can find ready-made solutions to all three aspects, it would be a nice engineering project to try to put them together and make a working system. But even this would be difficult, because of course there's a reason you can't buy such a system off the shelf and attach it to your car -- there are kinks to be worked out. In addition, it is less than clear at this point that there do exist ready-made solutions for each part. In that case, I would strongly advise against trying to make more than one "breakthrough" at once -- you could pick whichever aspect is most interesting to you. For example, if you want to concentrate on gas separation, you could bypass the MOF (assuming it adsorbs CO2, SO2, NOx, etc, in proportions roughly equal to those present in the gas fed to it) and just collect exhaust and try to separate it. If you are interested in algae processing, you could try feeding it unprocessed exhaust and pure CO2 (acquired elsewhere) and compare the results (or compare the results of different processing methods).

Amanda