In Switzerland, they learned how to get kerosene from dirty air and sunlight

ETH Zurich engineers have successfully tested a prototype of a syngas production plant based on materials extracted from polluted air. The source of energy for it is sunlight, the whole system works in passive mode and does not require any consumables. You can also connect a liquefaction module to it, so that at the final stage you receive not gas, but finished fuel identical to kerosene.

The installation consists of three modules, the first of which pumps dirty air and extracts carbon dioxide and water vapor from it. The second module captures sunlight and focuses it on a target made of cerium oxide, with a concentration coefficient of more than 3000. The target heats up to 1500 ℃, which triggers a chemical reaction to extract excess oxygen and hydrogen so that synthesis gas is formed at the outlet. It remains only to feed it into the third module and get liquid carbon fuel, kerosene or methanol.

The demonstration plant has a capacity of only 5 kW, it worked for 7 hours a day and produced up to 32 mlg of methanol per day. A little, however, it is worth considering that the weather in Switzerland is already autumn and the activity of the sun is reduced, plus the sky is covered with clouds. Another factor is more important here – the resulting fuel does not have a carbon footprint, since it is derived from emissions. That is, when it was created, no pollution occurred, and third-party emissions were partially disposed of. One disadvantage: at all costs, such fuel is still more expensive than that obtained from fossil raw materials.