Watch: Solar fuel refinery is ‘no science fiction’

Researchers have developed a technology that can produce carbon-neutral transportation fuels from sunlight and air.

Now, in a Nature paper, they demonstrate the stable and reliable operation of the solar mini-refinery under real on-sun conditions.

And they show a way to introduce solar fuels to the market without additional carbon taxes.

For the past two years, researchers led by Aldo Steinfeld, professor of renewable energy carriers at ETH Zurich, have been operating a solar mini-refinery on the roof of the Machine Laboratory in the center of Zurich.

This unique system can produce liquid transportation fuels, such as methanol or kerosene, from sunlight and air in a multi-stage thermochemical process.

Here, project architect Steinfeld and coauthor Anthony Patt, a professor in the environmental systems science department, explain what the experiments revealed, where optimization is needed, and how solar kerosene can succeed in entering the market:

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