Engineering Commons^™

Sunshine To Petrol: Thermochemistry For Solar Fuels, James Miller, Eric Coker, Andrea Ambrosini, Anthony Mcdaniel, Ivan Ermanoski, Ellen Stechel

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

Sandia National Laboratories has for many years been engaged in investigating and developing the science and technology of solar thermochemistry for application to production of solar fuels (“Sunshine to Petrol”), and thermochemical energy storage. The vision of Sunshine to Petrol is captured in one deceptively simple chemical equation:

Solar Energy + xCO₂ + (x+1) H₂O → CxH₂x+₂ (liquid fuel) + (1.5x+0.5) O₂

Practical implementation of this equation may seem far-fetched, since it effectively describes the use of solar energy to reverse combustion. However, it is also representative of the photosynthetic processes responsible for …