Denso’s Anjo plant is residence to the corporate’s Electrification Innovation Middle, the place it develops and manufactures next-generation applied sciences for battery-powered vehicles. And a pilot facility there, housed in a small box-like outbuilding, is the place the magic occurs.
Inside, a fancy tangle of pipes, tanks, dehydrators, turbines and catalyzing gear synthesizes methane by combining carbon dioxide with hydrogen.
The carbon dioxide is piped into the constructing from an aluminum smelting facility on the opposite facet of the sprawling Anjo complicated, the place the emissions are captured.
The hydrogen is generated on-site by electrolyzing water with electrical energy.
That electrical energy is inexperienced and renewable, generated by photo voltaic panels on the manufacturing facility. Right this moment, the oxygen break up from the hydrogen via electrolysis is launched into the ambiance. Sooner or later, Denso plans to seize the oxygen, too, as one other supply of energy combustion.
The synthesizing facility combines hydrogen and carbon dioxide via a catalyst response to create methane, a chemical compound consisting of 1 carbon and 4 hydrogen atoms.
The concept is to recoup the ensuing methane and reuse it as a gas supply. Carbon given off via its combustion can, in idea, be recaptured and recirculated via the identical course of.