Under the skin: the carbon-neutral fuel that also cleans air
One of those is the production of methanol created by triggering a chemical reaction between sustainably produced hydrogen and CO2 in the atmosphere using a process called Direct Air Capture .
In the UK, the University of Surrey has been awarded £250,000 by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to fund a project aimed at producing carbonnegative methanol from DAC. All that would be required was to fi t liners to the existing underground petrol tanks of fi lling stations and upgrade the pumps to handle methanol, which could be delivered by road tankers like petrol and diesel. Reformers would extract hydrogen from the methanol on board the car to feed the fuel cells and drivers would pump methanol like petrol.