Scientists have learned how to recover from fuel combustion products

European researchers have used the products of fuel combustion to re-create. Reported by ETH Zurich.

Specialists from the project managed to combine SOLARJET stage of decomposition and synthesis of aviation kerosene in one system. To this end, scientists from water and carbon dioxide under the influence of light synthesized in the gas which via a Fischer-Tropsch process was converted into kerosene. The key technology is the creation and use of a special high-temperature reactor, which provides a full cycle of transformations.


The reactor contains a porous ceramic absorber made ​​of cerium oxide , and helps to break the water and carbon dioxide. Cerium oxide is involved in the synthesis and decomposition reaction and returns to its original state. Scientists were able to hold 240 such consecutive cycles and get 750 liters of synthetic gas , which was sent from Zurich to Amsterdam for conversion into jet fuel using the Fischer-Tropsch process .

While the authors manage to recover only a small amount of kerosene , but the resulting materials have certified the appropriate services to be used as fuel vehicles .

SOLARJET project began work in June 2011 and incorporates a variety of research and industrial organizations , such as the ETH Zurich and the " Shell Global Solutions" . Scientists are going to increase the effectiveness of the technology and bring it to the industrial scale .