The U.S. Navy could soon be sailing through an ocean of jet fuel
if new research proves economical. By extracting dissolved
carbon dioxide from seawater and combining it with hydrogen
stripped from water molecules, Navy chemists hope to one day
secure a cheap and steady fuel source for its fleet of jets.
"The U.S. Navy is surrounded by seawater and the Navy needs jet
fuel," said Robert Dorner, a scientist at the Naval Research
Laboratory in Washington, D.C. who works on the technology. "In
the seawater you have CO2 and you have hydrogen. The question is
how do you convert that into jet fuel." The answer, according to
Dorner, is a modified version of the chemical reaction known as
the Fischer-Tropsch process. Typically Fischer-Tropsch starts
with carbon monoxide and hydrogen and, using metal catalysts and
heat, ends with a mixture of methane, waxes and synthesis gas
(syngas), which can then produce fuel or plastic. Fischer-
Tropsch is expensive and energy-intensive, which often limits
its usefulness. One of the