Oct 20 2008
Carbon Sciences, Inc. (CABN), the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into gasoline and other fuels, today commented on the source of hydrogen and energy efficiency of its unique CO2-to-Fuel technology.
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.
Derek McLeish, CEO of Carbon Sciences added: "We are very excited about our novel process to transform CO2 into fuel. Since announcing this technology, we have been inundated by inquiries of interest from academia and industry. Because many aspects of our technology are trade secrets, we are not free to discuss all the details. However, based on our research to date, we believe that we will be able to demonstrate our technology within the next several months with a prototype that can convert a stream of CO2 into an immediately flammable liquid fuel."