Bosch says it has come up with a manufacturing process for synthetic fuel that will make internal combustion engines carbon-neutral.
It claims the process, which turns CO2 into a raw material, can make synthetic fuel that, if used in cars as planned, has the potential to save 2.8 gigatons of CO2 in Europe by 2050.
“Up until recently, a carbon-neutral combustion engine was the stuff of dreams. Now it may soon become reality,” said the German tech company in a press release today.
“The secret lies in synthetic, or carbon-neutral, fuels, whose manufacturing process captures CO2.”
In this way, says Bosch, the greenhouse gas becomes a raw material from which petrol, diesel and substitute natural gas can be produced with the help of electricity from renewable sources.
“Synthetic fuels can make gasoline- and diesel-powered cars carbon-neutral, and thus make a significant contribution to limiting global warming,” said Dr Volkmar Denner, chairman of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH.
Bosch says that by 2050, the use of synthetic fuels as a scheduled supplement to electrification in the European car fleet alone could save up to 2.8 gigatons or 2,800,000,000,000kg of CO2 -- three times Germany’s CO2 emissions in 2016.
It claims that, along with vehicle electrification, the move to synthetic fuels would help meet CO2 targets set by the Paris climate conference, which called for CO2 emissions from traffic worldwide to be reduced 50 per cent over the next four decades, and by at least 85 per cent in the advanced economies.
“Achieving our future climate targets calls for other intelligent solutions apart from electromobility,” said Denner.
Bosch points out that road cars produce only a small proportion of global CO2 emissions because “even if all cars were to drive electrically one day, aircraft, ships and even trucks will still run mainly on fuel”.
“Carbon-neutral combustion engines that run on synthetic fuels are thus a very promising path to explore – also for passenger cars,” said Bosch. “In addition, synthetic fuels can be designed to burn practically soot-free. In this way, the cost of exhaust-gas treatment can be reduced.”
Despite the fact that EVs will continue to reduce in cost and increase in driving range, Bosch says the development of synthetic fuel is worthwhile because a ready-made global refueling network and combustion engine repair and maintenance system already exist.
“In addition, because synthetic fuels are compatible with the existing infrastructure and engine generation, achieving a high degree of market penetration would take far less time than electrifying the existing vehicle fleet,” said Bosch.
“Nor will anything change for the drivers of older vehicles, as even classic cars will still run on synthetic gasoline – in terms of chemical structure and fundamental properties, it is still gasoline.”
Bosch calculates that up to a lifetime mileage of 160,000km, the total cost of ownership of a hybrid running on synthetic fuel could be less than that of a long-range electric car, depending on the type of renewable energy used.
“Technically speaking, it is already possible to manufacture synthetic fuels,” said Bosch. “If the electricity used is generated from renewables (and thus CO2-free), such fuels are carbon-neutral and very versatile.
“The hydrogen that is initially produced can be used to power fuel cells, while the fuels created following further processing can be used to run combustion engines or aircraft turbines.”
Pilot projects to commercialise synthetic diesel, gasoline and gas are already underway in Norway and Germany, but Bosch warns that “considerable efforts are still needed before synthetic fuels can become established”, mainly because the complex processing facilities are expensive to build.
Therefore synthetic fuel itself will remain expensive for the foreseeable future, although Bosch says studies suggest that, excluding any excise duties, it could cost between 1.00 and 1.40 euros a litre in the long-term.
It also points out that, unlike renewable biofuels, “synthetic fuels do not mean a choice between fuel tank and dinner plate”.
“And if renewable energy is used, synthetic fuels can be produced without the volume limitations that can be expected in the case of biofuels because of factors such as the amount of land available.”
Bosch says synthetic fuels are made solely with the help of renewable energy. In a first stage, hydrogen is produced from water. Carbon is added to this to produce a liquid fuel.
This carbon can be recycled from industrial processes or even captured from the air using filters. Combining CO2 and hydrogen then results in the synthetic fuel, which can be gasoline, diesel, gas or even kerosene.