Subject: Re: OT: Direct Air Capture (DAC) of CO2 and XOM
Texirish,
Your 100 octane comment brought back a memory. I served on an industry committee thirty years ago with a fellow who had worked on a 100 octane fuel and engine testing project during WWII. He said high performance military aircraft were experiencing pre-detonation issues at high altitudes. This led to the new developments in fuel blends and octane ratings you mentioned. This gent was a mechanical engineer and was on the engine team.

Another local gentleman now long gone was involved with Pratt & Whitney's development of the engine that powered the B-29. His team was tasked with finding a way to get 125 hp out of a one cylinder engine. Their work led to developments including sodium filled exhaust valves to shed the awesome heat from the valve. Of course, the single cylinder design they tweaked was to become the basis for the 18 cylinder R-3350 engine.

Zeolites are great vehicles for all sorts of chemical processes. My chemistry background tells me while zeolites and catalysts can do heavy lifting, there will still be an energy cost to process highly dilute atmospheric CO2. It may be solar energy supplied or nuclear energy supplied or maybe fusion energy one day. At any rate there will be a lot of energy needed to capture and put away CO2.

Uwharrie