Santa Barbara company Carbon Sciences is working on developing alternative energy methods by recycling carbon dioxide. Basically, the idea is that you strip the carbon atoms off the CO2 and strip some hydrogen atoms off some H2O, and put the C’s and the H’s together to make hydrocarbons. As you might expect, any publicly available information is a little bit light on technological details, but this is what they do offer up:
Dr. Naveed Aslam, inventor of the company’s technology and chief technology advisor, commented: “Unlike other CO2 to fuel approaches, Carbon Sciences’ technology does not use molecular hydrogen (H2) because the creation and reaction of H2 is very energy intensive. Rather, the company’s approach is based on a low energy biocatalytic hydrolysis process where water molecules (H2O) are split into hydrogen atoms (H) and hydroxide ions (OH) using a biocatalyst. The hydrogen atoms (H) are immediately used in the production of hydrocarbons and the free electrons in OH are used to power the various biocatalytic processes.”
“Our technology is not based on photosynthetic plants where sun light is used to drive biofuel production reactions, such as in algae. Instead, it is based on natural organic chemistry processes that occur in all living organisms where carbon atoms, extracted from CO2, and hydrogen atoms extracted from H2O, are combined to create hydrocarbon molecules using biocatalysts and small amounts of energy. Our innovative technology allows this process to occur on a very large industrial scale through advance nano-engineering of the biocatalysts and highly efficient process design,” concluded Dr. Aslam.
No word on what the mystery “biocatalyst” might actually be.
Here’s a CNN story about them, which offers similarly a vague yet impressive sounding explanation:
The recycling process has five main stages. After rudimentary purification and regeneration of the biocatalysts, the CO2 is transferred to a Biocatalytic Reactor Matrix where mass quantities of biocatalysts function in a matrix of liquid reaction chambers breaking down CO2 and turning it into hydrocarbons.
Liquids are then filtered and gases are extracted through condensers ready for conversion to higher grade fuel.
No word on whether or not Keanu Reeves is involved in the Biocatalytic Reactor Matrix.
They also got a writeup in the Wired blog.
You can buy them on the OTCBB for 25 cents a share as of today.