Recycling carbon dioxide into petrol 03 January 2008 A new
reactor could make chemically recycling carbon dioxide back into
petrol a worthwhile endeavour, US scientists say. Researchers at
Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico, are to test a
prototype device this spring, which will use concentrated solar
energy to drive chemical reactions that split carbon dioxide
molecules to get carbon monoxide. The same system was originally
designed to split water to form hydrogen; and these two products
can then be combined to synthesise liquid hydrocarbon fuels -
such as methanol or petrol. Splitting the stable carbon dioxide
molecule is so tough that many researchers think the most
economic course of action is simply to bury the greenhouse gas
underground. And solar plants usually generate electricity,
rather than split CO2. But the Sandia team led by Jim Miller,
Nathan Siegel and Richard Diver, who work on the 'Sunshine to
Petrol' (S2P) project, think their device's chemical reactions
are efficient enough to make i