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This car cleans the outside air as you drive it

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by John321, Jul 25, 2022.

  1. John321

    John321 Senior Member

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    Experimental Car Captures More Carbon Out of the Air Than It Emits (msn.com)

    " a group of 35 students at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands developed a concept car that actually cleans the air while it drives."

    "In addition to sucking carbon out of the air, Zem is also constructed using a sustainable 3D printing process. For example, creating the car’s body panels and structural frame resulted in nearly no residual waste. The plastics used in the 3D printing process can also be recycled and reused for other products too."

    "If a few dozen college students can create an innovative car of the future, what’s stopping multi-billion dollar auto manufacturers from doing the same?"
     
    #1 John321, Jul 25, 2022
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2022
  2. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Give me a break... Less than 5 pounds of carbon for every 20,000 miles? But maybe if the technology advances and I could get a 5 pound cinder block out of the trunk every hour I could build my own house very slowly and that'd be fun. :)
     
  3. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    You laugh, but the foundation of my house was made like this:

     
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  4. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    They don't make 'em like they used to....
     
  5. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    Didn't have much luck finding what exactly the technology they are using is. Whatever it is, the car is mainly publicity. The technology will likely work out better in a stationary plant.
     
  6. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    We used CO2 Scrubbers in the canoe club.
    I don't remember the chemistry exactly but it went something like using a liquid amine to remove the CO2 and heat to remove the CO2 from the amine.
    We used them to remove something like 300 pounds of CO2 per day from the atmosphere but there would be two kinds of 'scaling' problems with using this tech on a planetary scale.
    The liquid amine was prone to scaling and the scrubbers were made to be portable and efficient enough for military use - meaning they didn't have to BE very much of either one as long as they were rugged and dependable.
    Even though Nucular power is close to being REALLY emissions free instead of merely "carbon neutral." it's expensive as H and politically complicated. Back when I was a slimy contractor for Uncle they were tinkering with a solid amine solution, and they got it to mock-ups but I don't know if this system made it to today's boats.

    Inasmuch as one would actually WANT a government to try to solve (anthropogenic) climate change dynamically, I'm thinking that a plankton or algae (a redundancy?) based solution would be more effective than some kind of human engineered ERB inspired "atmosphere factory."

    Or?
    You could have the mother of all X-prizes.
     
  7. Rmay635703

    Rmay635703 Senior Member

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    Alternative Cement and calcium piling sources are said to consume carbon
     
  8. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    From the Googles:
    ...its [cement/concrete] popularity comes at an environmental cost –the production of concrete, which is made with cement mix, contributes about eight percent of all carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.Aug 8, 2021

    (**) FWIW, I think that the Googles are full of balloon juice.
    I'm not much of a volcanologist (nor are most of the ones who claim to be) but I'm guessing that volcanos produce quite a lot of carbon and when you add things like power plants, cars that aren't Priuses, aircraft, bottling water, factory emissions, bovine fluctuance, and all the other naturally occurring bio-processes there's not much elbow room left over left for cement's alleged eight-percent contribution to the planets destruction.....;)
     
    #8 ETC(SS), Jul 26, 2022
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2022
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  9. Rmay635703

    Rmay635703 Senior Member

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  10. mmmodem

    mmmodem Senior Taste Tester

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    Nothing. They already did it 2 decades ago.
    2000 Nissan Sentra CA "Clean Air" Model Claims Title as the Cleanest Gasoline-Fueled Car in the World
    Nissan claimed it emits less harmful emissions while being driven than a vehicle that is parked all day.

    I think some of the technology has been absorbed into the Advanced Technology Partial Zero Emissions standard, AT-PZEV with the "ozone scrubber" removed.
     
  11. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    That's an ICE car that greatly reduces the regulated pollutants it emits.

    The OT is a BEV that removes CO2 from the air as it is driven. Its direct operation is resulting in something being taken out of the atmosphere, and being locked away. The only previous car technology that could claim that is DPFs as they do remove particles that come into the air intake of the engine.
     
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  12. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Yep... Back in early 2000's my friend built something similar to this, but much larger. They combined recycled paper with concrete or Papercrete. He gave me a couple sample blocks of various sizes and they've been outside in the PNW's relentless rain for two decades and still no rot, no deterioration, no water retention and that's without any paint or sealant of any kind. Of course like most eco-conscious designs, if you don't have laws to force the market to these far less planet killing options, these advancements never get adopted.
     
  13. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    There is also in recent news a train car to do this:

    Modified trains could harvest CO2 directly from the air | E&ampT Magazine

    ==
    Yours truly is preparing a review of CO2 capture by basaltic rocks and concrete. In that sense it is very welcome to read about volcanoes and concrete 'together' here. They really belong together :)

    Basalt minerals and concrete are both absorbing CO2 as we speak. Both could be optimized by spreading them out Another way to trap CO2 is by collecting and injecting it into suitable deep rocks. The last is remarkably small compared to first two. At an appropriate time I will say more :)

    I also make a guess in manuscript about the amount of concrete waste being made in Ukraine now, compared to annual average building de construction globally. That part may not make it into final version :eek:

    ==
    I've kept up on the tree-growing and soil-storing aspects of carbon capture, but not on algae research. So I can't link a current source on how well it's going. I can say that plankton means "floating" and refers to both tiny plants and tiny animals. Not a synonym for algae.
     
  14. John321

    John321 Senior Member

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    I thought the car article was very interesting. A BEV that cleans the air as you use it.

    Although just an experimental car it opens a new horizon on how cars could be viewed.

    Imagine if that concept became a reality and congested cities would say we need more cars in our area to help clean the air.

    In the article it says about 10 of these cars would clean the air as well as one mature tree. They mentioned this system could easily be improved to offer much greater carbon collection if that was desired.

    Wouldn't that be a different take- seeing cars as one of the answers to global warming and pollution rather than one of the causes