Browse Topic: Carbon dioxide
R-1234yf is used in almost every new car sold in the U.S., but the EU is discussing a ban and the industry is investigating alternatives like CO2 and propane. According to its manufacturer, Chemours, use of R-1234yf has grown so much since the refrigerant replaced the long-established R-134a that it's now used in 95% of new cars sold in the U.S. An estimated 220 million cars on global roads are also using it. The problem with R-134a, which came in cars and trucks in the 1990s, is that it's a gas with “a global warming potential (GWP) that is 1,430 times that of CO2,” according to the EPA. Since 2017, EU legislation has banned the use of any refrigerant in new vehicles with a GWP higher than 150. That rule doomed R-134a but opened the door for R-1234yf, which has a GWP of only four. The EU is currently revisiting R-1234yf emissions rules and may ban the substance in a few years. In the U.S., the EPA stands by its use
Bemis Manufacturing and BASF collaborated to develop a lighter-weight and lower-cost hydraulic tank for compact excavators that was recognized with a lightweighting award traditionally reserved for automotive innovations. Receiving an honorable mention in the Enabling Technology category of this year's Altair Enlighten Awards, the development team leveraged a combination of injection molding and vibration welding techniques to lower costs by approximately 20% and reduce mass by about 5% compared to the traditional roto-molding process. The solution also is more eco-efficient, delivering both environmental savings (reductions in lifecycle CO2 emissions) and reducing lifecycle costs
Turbulence, temperature changes, water vapor, carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, and other gases absorb, reflect, and scatter sunlight as it passes through the atmosphere, bounces off the Earth’s surface, and is collected by a sensor on a remote sensing satellite. As a result, the spectral data received at the sensor is distorted. Scientists know this and have devised several ways to account for the atmosphere’s corrupting influence on remote sensing data
Solar panels are an increasingly popular way to generate electricity from the sun’s energy. Although humans are still figuring out how to reliably turn that energy into fuel, plants have been doing it for eons through photosynthesis. Now, a team reporting in ACS Engineering Au has mimicked the process to produce methane, an energy-dense fuel, from carbon dioxide, water and sunlight. Their prototype system could help pave the way toward replacing nonrenewable fossil fuels
Heavy-duty vehicle regulations from the European Union specify a 43% carbon emissions reduction by 2030. The EU's carbon emissions reduction mandate climbs to 64% by 2035 before soaring to 90% by 2040. “The hydrogen combustion engine has a role to play to reduce CO2 emissions,” said Vincent Giuffrida, CFD engineer for IFP Energies novellas (IFPEN), a Rueil-Malmaison, France-headquartered public research and innovation organization. Giuffrida and IFPEN colleague and research engineer Olivier Colin were the presenters for a webinar addressing the “Development of a Dedicated Hydrogen Combustion System for Heavy-Duty Applications” in July. The webinar was hosted by Madison, Wisconsin-headquartered Convergent Science, whose CONVERGE CFD software simulates three-dimensional fluid flows. Features of the CFD software include autonomous meshing, complex moving geometries, a detailed chemical kinetics solver, advanced physical models, conjugate heat transfer model, fluid structure interaction
Even as the world slowly begins to decarbonize industrial processes, achieving lower concentrations of atmospheric carbon requires technologies that remove existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — rather than just prevent the creation of it
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are developing battery technologies to fight climate change in two ways, by expanding the use of renewable energy and capturing airborne carbon dioxide
The global transportation industry, and road freight in particular, faces formidable challenges in reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions; both Europe and the US have already enabled legislation with CO2 / GHG reduction targets. In Europe, targets are set on a fleet level basis: a CO2 baseline has already been established using Heavy Duty Vehicle (HDV) data collected and analyzed by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in 2019/2020. This baseline data has been published as the reference for the required CO2 reductions. More recently, the EU has proposed a Zero Emissions Vehicle definition of 3g CO2/t-km. The Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) designation is expected to be key to a number of market instruments that improve the economics and practicality of hydrogen trucks. This paper assesses the permissible amount of carbon-based fuel in hydrogen fueled vehicles – the Pilot Energy Ratio (PER) – for each regulated subgroup of HDVs in the baseline data set. The analysis indicates that a PER
Most heavy trucks should be fully electric, using a combination of batteries and catenary electrification, but heavy trucks requiring very long unsupported range will need chemical fuels. Hydrogen is the key to storing renewably generated electricity chemically. At the scale of heavy trucks, compressed hydrogen can match the specific energy of diesel, but its energy density is five times lower, limiting the range to around 2,000 km. Scaling green hydrogen production and addressing leakage must be priorities. Hydrogen-derived electrofuels—or “e-fuels”—have the potential to scale, and while the economic comparison currently has unknowns, clean air considerations have gained new importance. The limited supply of bioenergy should be reserved for critical applications, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), aviation, shipping, and road freight in the most remote locations. Additionally, there are some reasons to prefer ethanol or methanol to diesel-type fuels as they are
Carbon capture is a critical technology in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other industrial facilities. But a suitable material for effective carbon capture at low cost has yet to be found. One candidate is metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs. This porous material can selectively absorb carbon dioxide
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Columbia University have developed a way to convert carbon dioxide (CO2), a potent greenhouse gas, into carbon nanofibers, materials with a wide range of unique properties and many potential long-term uses. Their strategy uses tandem electrochemical and thermochemical reactions run at relatively low temperatures and ambient pressure. As the scientists describe in the journal Nature Catalysis, this approach could successfully lock carbon away in a useful solid form to offset or even achieve negative carbon emissions
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