The picture shows the rocket launch
Human industrial facilities and cars almost all the time emit a lot of carbon dioxide into the air, these gases after the rapid increase in the number of greenhouse effects for the earth, pose a threat to the environment, countries are trying to deal with the carbon dioxide that has been emitted, while reducing its emissions through the upgrading of industrial equipment, but Musk has proposed a new idea, let carbon dioxide into rocket fuel? SpaceX offers a reward of 100 million yuan for research and development of technology, can such ambitions really be realized? Carbon dioxide is a natural component of the air, colorless and odorless, and the aqueous solution is slightly sour, accounting for about 0.03% to 0.04% of the atmosphere, because it is a greenhouse gas, so this proportion will lead to a global greenhouse effect.
The picture shows the Falcon rocket
As the "Iron Man of Silicon Valley", any move by Elon Musk will attract widespread attention from public opinion, and another idea he proposed recently has been pushed to the forefront, and the company is said to be conducting a brand new study to make future rockets only need to burn "air" to fly into space, to be precise, Musk's plan is to extract carbon dioxide from the air, and then use it as fuel for the rocket, and invite interested people to join them.
After all, in most cases, carbon dioxide is the product of combustion, not only as a relatively inert gas can not participate in the process of burning this fierce oxidation reaction, and even its content is too high will lead to the reaction forced to stop, so carbon dioxide can even be made into a fire extinguisher, how can such a gas become rocket fuel? Of course, Musk and his scientists also know that carbon dioxide cannot be directly involved in combustion, so the so-called burning air actually refers to the use of carbon dioxide extracted from the air for chemical reaction to prepare rocket fuel.
The picture shows Musk
To use carbon dioxide to make rocket fuel, it is necessary to use the Sabatje reactor, this chemical reaction was first discovered by the French chemist Paul Sabage and Jean Battis Sension and others in 1897, the two raw materials of hydrogen and carbon dioxide are placed at a high temperature of 300 to 400 degrees, and nickel-touch enzymes are used as catalysts for catalysis at the same time, and a chemical reaction can occur to produce water and methane, and the latter of which can be used as rocket fuel. The water in it can produce hydrogen and oxygen after electrolysis, and the hydrogen in it can be used as the raw material for the reaction to continue the production of methane, and oxygen can be used as an essential oxidant in the rocket flight process, so if this reaction can be triggered in a more rigorous way, it can create a steady stream of fuel for future rockets, and at the same time, the carbon dioxide in the air can be further used in this process, which plays an important role in controlling the global greenhouse effect.
In addition to the use of this technology on Earth, Musk's other target to colonize Mars also has a certain demand for this technology, after all, the thin atmosphere of Mars has a high carbon dioxide content, for future colonization of Mars humans, local materials, the use of the planet's air to make rocket fuel, obviously more conducive to the use of Mars as a springboard, further development into the universe.
The picture shows Mars
Of course, this reaction itself also has some disadvantages, first of all, if the methane produced by the larger energy in the reaction process is accidentally leaked, it will become a greenhouse gas that is stronger than carbon dioxide and cause greater damage to the global environment.