Scientists develop ‘cleaner’ diesel

Researchers from KU Leaven and Utrecht University discovered a method to produce diesel fuel that emits less Carbon Dioxide (CO2).

Cars that are driven by this clean diesel would emit far fewer particulates and CO2. The researchers believe that their method can be scaled up for industrial use with relative ease, so the new diesel could be used in cars in 5 to 10 years. The new technique can be applied to petroleum-based fuels, but also to renewable carbon from biomass.

In fuel production, catalysts are used to turn raw material into fuel. The common assumption was that catalyst molecules should be close together to speed up fuel production. But researchers found out that cleaner fuel will be produced if the catalysts have a minimum distance.

“Our results are the exact opposite of what we had expected. At first, we thought that the samples had been switched or that something was wrong with our analysis,” Professor Johan Martens (KU Leuven) “We repeated the experiments three times, only to arrive at the same conclusion: the current theory is wrong. There has to be a minimum distance between the functions within a catalyst. This goes against what the industry has been doing for the past 50 years.”