Recently, domestic refined oil prices have risen five times in a row, and No. 92 gasoline has broken through the 8 yuan mark. It has been rising like this, so that car owners, especially those with fuel vehicles, feel a little painful.
At this time, many people complained in their hearts, when will this oil price be lowered, people can't help but think of the 5 yuan era of gasoline, at that time, you don't need to pick and search like this now, every time you go to the gas station, you can buy a sentence: fill up!
It is estimated that gasoline in the era of 5 yuan can only appear in dreams, and under the existing oil system, it is difficult for such a good thing to occur again. However, I can tell you a good news, that is, there is now "artificial gasoline".
According to the announcement of the Dalian Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2022, artificial gasoline has been successfully synthesized from carbon dioxide and hydrogen, which has great advantages over traditional gasoline, one of the biggest advantages is low cost.
The cost per ton is only about 4,300, and a ton of gasoline is about 1,379 liters, which is converted into about 3 yuan per liter. There is a sense of surprise that this price is not very surprising.
But two years later, why has artificial gasoline not been promoted? Can cheap artificial gasoline be added in the future?
What is Artificial Gasoline?
In fact, there are currently two directions for artificial gasoline, one is the research direction of the Chinese research team, and the other is the research direction of the British team. Although both of these can drive the car forward, they are very different in nature.
We all know that the chemical formula of gasoline is C8H18, from this chemical formula, it can be seen that gasoline is mainly carbon and hydrogen, in the process of gasoline combustion, that is, the process of reaction with oxygen, its chemical formula is:
2C8H18+25O2=16CO2+18H2O
From this example, it can be seen that after gasoline is burned, carbon dioxide and water are mainly produced, which is why cars emit greenhouse gases when they burn gasoline.
If you want artificial gasoline, you must have two elements, carbon and hydrogen. In fact, both elements are ubiquitous in nature, but not many want to combine carbon and hydrogen to produce gasoline.
This time, the Dalian Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences chose carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2), from which it can be seen that there are three elements in these two gases, namely oxygen, carbon and hydrogen.
These three elements are basically the same as those produced after gasoline combustion, and what the Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has to do is to add a catalyst and reverse this process to remove oxygen under specific conditions.
Its final chemical formula must be like this: 8CO2 + 9H2 = C8H18 + 8O2
And the C8H18 is the same composition as the gasoline produced in nature, of course, in what environment, what catalyst is added, these are all state secrets, and they can't be checked, even if they are found, they can't be said.
Let's talk about British artificial gasoline, British artificial gasoline is also cheap, about 2.8 yuan a liter, this artificial gasoline is actually not gasoline, but "hydrogen".
We all know that hydrogen is dangerous in the process of use and transportation because it is a flammable gas. The current hydrogen energy, which is the one promoted by Japan, has been in two directions before, one is direct combustion. The other is to convert the chemical energy of hydrogen and oxygen directly into electrical energy.
However, the University of London and Oxford in the United Kingdom have developed a new method, which is to squeeze high-density hydrogen into tiny water droplets. Its essence is a mixture of hydrogen and water, that is, the fuel is prepared by physical means, not chemical means.
What are the benefits of man-made gasoline over traditional gasoline?
If you use the car a lot, or often run long distances, you know that after the car is used for a long time, the spark plug will produce carbon deposits. And this carbon deposit has a lot to do with oil products.
The so-called good oil quality means that there are fewer impurities in gasoline. Although the level of human science and technology is very high, when refining gasoline, it is inevitable that there are still some tiny impurities, although these impurities are invisible to the naked eye, but they still exist objectively.
This is mainly because gasoline is refined from petroleum, which is formed by the decomposition of organisms on earth, so oil itself is an extremely rich chemical product.
Therefore, the impurities in the oil can only be reduced but not completely removed, and the general large refineries, like two barrels of oil, have higher equipment, so the impurities are relatively less, and the oil products are better. In some small refineries, the equipment may be poor, containing more impurities, and the relative oil products are worse.
That's why some small refineries are relatively cheap. Whether to choose gasoline with better oil but more expensive, or gasoline with cheaper price but slightly worse oil, it depends on the personal choice.
However, artificial gasoline has no concerns about oil products, as can be seen from the above, artificial oil is purely artificially synthesized, and after the synthesis of carbon dioxide and hydrogen, only gasoline and oxygen remain. It is very pure and the quality of the oil is very high.
Artificial gasoline is very environmentally friendly to use, after use, carbon dioxide and water will be produced, and then carbon dioxide will be prepared into artificial gasoline, forming a cycle that will not be burdened by the natural environment. And British man-made gasoline is essentially hydrogen, which is directly turned into water after combustion.
Therefore, whether it is from the perspective of environmental protection or oil products, artificial gasoline has great advantages over traditional gasoline, and there is a greater advantage, that is, low cost.
In this case, many people, including me, can't wait to add artificial gasoline, why is it delayed in promoting it after two years?
Why is it delayed?
It's not that it doesn't promote, but it's working overtime, but the production capacity is still insufficient, China consumes about 130 million tons of gasoline every year, note that this is only gasoline, not oil.
However, according to the official information released by the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Dalian Academy of Sciences, the current production capacity can only reach 1,000 tons, which can only meet the Chinese market of one-130,000.
This artificial gasoline is not even a drop in the bucket for the Chinese market, it is a drizzle and a car, not a drop in the bucket. Therefore, at present, it is not that I don't want to promote, but that the production capacity is not enough. The main reason for the lack of production capacity is not that the technology is immature, but that the raw materials are insufficient.
We usually say that the high carbon dioxide content of the earth causes the temperature of the earth to rise. It seems that carbon dioxide is already very high on the earth, but in reality, carbon dioxide makes up about 0.04% of the air.
In order to obtain low-cost artificial gasoline, carbon dioxide must be captured from the atmosphere, which is difficult due to the low levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
In addition to carbon dioxide, there is also an important raw material, that is, hydrogen, and because of its very light mass, most of it escapes into space, and the hydrogen content in the air is negligible only 0.00005%, which means that there is only 1 hydrogen molecule in 1 million air molecules.
Obviously, this can't be captured in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide. Therefore, hydrogen needs to be prepared manually, and the most effective means of preparing hydrogen is electrolysis.
Electrolysis requires electricity and water, and if you want to be cheap, it is obviously unrealistic to use industrial electricity, which will cause high costs, which can only use those idle electric energy.
The place with the most idle electricity is in the northwest of the mainland, where there is a lot of solar and wind energy, but there is also a limit in the northwest, although there is abundant electricity, but there is a shortage of water.
The only place where there is no shortage of water is the coastal areas, and the coastal areas are generally the provinces that use large amounts of electricity, and the provinces that use large amounts of electricity are generally relatively short of electricity. Therefore, a place where there is no shortage of water and electricity is cheap will be the best place to develop artificial gasoline.
And these are problems that need to be solved urgently, when these problems are solved, I believe that the production capacity will come up, and it will be vigorously promoted and popularized.
Take a look at whether your hometown meets the above conditions, and if so, maybe in the near future, you will be able to use cheap and good artificial gasoline.