Refrigerator-sized machine makes gasoline out of thin air

In 2022, transportation was responsible for an estimated 28 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The majority of those emissions came from everyday gas-powered cars. And while electric vehicles have been heralded as a greener alternative, decades of advocacy and hundreds of billions of dollars in investment have yielded meager results. 

Today, electric cars make up just around 8 percent of all vehicles on U.S. roads. (Roughly 90 person of vehicles globally still run on fossil fuels.) Most EVs remain prohibitively expensive for the majority of Americans, and they require enormous amounts of critical minerals—resources that, when extracted at scale, pose their own environmental dilemmas. Most Americans also still just aren’t interested in ditching their gas guzzlers to save the planet. 

But what if they didn’t have to? 

That’s the alluring—if wildly ambitious—vision being presented by New York–based fuels startup Aircela. Earlier this month, the company announced it had created the world’s first functional machine capable of generating real, usable car gasoline “directly from the air.” Aircela’s new device, roughly the size of a commercial refrigerator, combines direct air capture (DAC) with on-site fuel synthesis to create gasoline using just air, water, and renewable energy. No fossil fuels, they say, are required. 

The product their device produces can be poured directly into the tank of any standard gas-powered car. Aircela demonstrated the process, making gasoline directly from air, in front of a live audience in New York. Though most would describe this proof of concept as a “prototype,” company co-founder and CEO Eric Dahlgren takes some umbrage with that label.

“We didn’t build a prototype. We built a working machine,” Dahlgren said in a statement. “We want people to walk away knowing this isn’t too good to be true—it actually works.”

How an at-home carbon capture facility would work 

Aircela’s device essentially functions as a compact, portable direct carbon capture facility (DAC) unit. Carbon capture generally refers to the practice of removing carbon dioxide from sources like smokestacks or fossil fuel power plants. Direct air capture, the approach used by Aircela, pulls CO₂ directly from the atmosphere. Europe currently has more than a dozen DAC facilities in operation, and the U.S. federal government is also investing in the technology. Some facilities, such as those run by Climeworks, use large fan-like machines to filter carbon dioxide from the air. Others, like those developed by Carbon Engineering, use chemical mists that bind with CO₂ to extract it. Some researchers are even exploring methods to capture carbon dioxide from the oceans. In most of these cases, the aim is to capture and store the harmful greenhouse gas. Aircela wants to recycle it into cars. 

Aircela claims its device captures carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and then converts it into gasoline. The resulting fuel doesn’t contain sulfur, ethanol, or heavy metals. Photos of the machine shared by the company show a device composed of three large blue hexagonal units—two side by side on the bottom and one stacked on top. These separate sections handle the stages of air capture and fuel synthesis. On the back of the machine is a standard-looking gasoline nozzle, similar to what you’d find at a gas station. In theory, someone could install one of these units outside their home and use it to refuel their vehicle before heading out for the day. More importantly, it suggests drivers could potentially reduce their environmental impact without needing to change their daily habits.

Aircela did not immediately respond when Popular Science asked for specific information about how long the total process of converting air into usable gasoline would take or the cost of the machines. The company reportedly wants to start manufacturing the machine by the fall with an interest in targeting a mix of residential, commercial, and industrial customers.

Related: [The truth about carbon capture technology]

The age old question: will it scale? 

The most obvious downside to an approach like this compared to a larger, industrial-scale DAC facility, is sheer impact. A single device, on its own, won’t make a meaningful dent in reducing carbon emissions. But Aircela believes its relatively small size actually makes it less costly and faster to deploy at scale. CEO Eric Dahlgren says the compact form factor gives the technology the flexibility to scale down for individual car owners or scale up for larger clients, such as gas stations or even cargo shipping containers.

“We truly believe that our approach is the fastest way to bring carbon neutral fuels to as many people as possible, to as many places as possible, as soon as possible,” Dahlgren said in a statement. 

Of course, that vision also depends entirely on the continued expansion and viability of renewable energy sources. If an Aircela machine uses electricity from a grid powered by natural gas, then not much has really been achieved in terms of carbon reduction. In the U.S., the trend toward renewable energy is strong, though notably less so under the current presidential administration, which has openly embraced the motto“drill baby drill.” Still, Dahlgren says it’s important to approach carbon reduction and environmentalism with a broad perspective and a sense of urgency.

“We cannot wait decades,” Dahlgren added “we need to do something about it right now.”

 

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