Three friends in Wales who met through their mutual love of fishing may have come up with the automotive holy grail -- a way to reduce vehicle emissions to zero.
Derek Palmer, Ian Houston and John Jones have spent about $350,000 to develop the technology known as “Greenbox.â€
The three were playing with ways to boost algae growth for fish farming when they “managed to develop a way to successfully capture a majority of the emissions from the dirtiest motor we could find†as Palmer puts it.
They are currently testing a barstool-size version of the product that can handle all emissions, save those from aircraft, and say they can build a version small enough to replace a car’s exhaust system. The device would be good for one tank of gas and then would need to be replaced...
The process also yields methane gas and fertilizer. More than 130 tests over the past three years have led to an 85-95 percent capture rate for carbon dioxide.
The inventors have split the boxesâ components into three parts, with each one of them acting as a custodian of one-third of the big secret. They wonât even let their wives peek in the box! -- Fran Irwin, Tech Contributor
estreka says:
03:56 PM, 10/18/07
I heard about scientists developing biofuel from algae, but this is a giant leap beyond that.
orangutan says:
05:58 PM, 10/18/07
It'd be good for citydwellers, but what happens on the highway? Could each gas station become a self-sufficient peddler of fuel?
opfreak says:
06:45 AM, 10/19/07
wow, sweetness. what needs to happen is the interval needs to be extended. thats all. (might be hard). but if they can get it to about 3k-5k miles, you just change it with your oil. and boom problem solved.
british_rover says:
08:44 AM, 10/19/07
If they can get the size down a little bit you could just have two or three of these stacked up back to back. As one fills it automatically switches over to the next one. You just carry a spare pack of three in the car and when all three are full slide the full one out and replace it with the empty. The full one goes in the empty location you got the spare from and when you return it to the center you get another empty pack.
crowb says:
10:51 AM, 10/19/07
I see this as a possibility for fleets and indsutrial use rather than for the average driver. There is no way my wife would put up with this. She doesn't even like to pump her own gas. But buses and delivery trucks and long haul trucks could certainly employ this technology.
I wonder if combining this technology with diesel hybridization would extend the usefulness of these algae filters? A diesel hybrind wouldn't be using the engine as much and so wouldn't emit as much pollution...
estreka says:
11:43 AM, 10/20/07
The article specifically states petrol. I don't know if it'll work with diesel.