Three men from Wales claim to have found an ‘efficient’ method to create biodiesel and reduce the emission of fumes from the vehicle at the same time, too good to believe!
The greenbox can be fixed underneath the car in line with the exhaust structure, where it would capture the notorious CO2 and nitrous oxides. Water vapour will be the primary emission from the vehicle. The captured gas will be fed to algae to produce biofuel.
The trio, organic chemist Derek Palmer and engineers Ian Houston and John Jones stumbled upon this possibility while experimenting with carbon dioxide to help boost algae growth for fish farming. The three have set up a company Maes Anturio Ltd., welsh for ‘field adventure’.
Greenbox needs to be replaced for every full tank of fuel, the greenbox would then go to a bioreactor to be emptied. The captured gases in the greenbox will be fed to algae; which would then be crushed to produce biodiesel almost identical to normal diesel. The emptied greenbox can be fixed to a car again and the cycle continues.
Although the greenbox is nearly the size of a stool, the developers claim that a box small enough to be placed with car exhausts can be made. The box can be placed even in the exhaust lines of buildings and heavy industries, including power plants.
Where’s the catch? At least ten factories requiring huge tracts of land will have to be setup, each covering nearly 400 hectares to process CO2 from nearly 30 million cars in Britain.
Inventors of the greenbox are keeping its technology a secret. Only they know how it works. The technology is divided into three sections and each inventor is the custodian of a section.
They now have the support of their local MP and are supposedly in talks with GM and Toyota to fund the box for its practical application. The inventors say they have spent nearly 170,000 pounds over two years to evolve the technology. Looks like the three fishermen have been able to create a technology that the world’s richest corporations, best minds and billions of dollars into R&D couldn’t crack.
[Source: Reuters]
