Captured Water, Carbon Dioxide From Car Exhaust Could Help Grow Food

Texas A&M researchers have a novel idea to capture waste from passenger vehicle exhaust for use in urban greenhouses for food production.

What if both the water and carbon dioxide (CO2) produced from a vehicle’s exhaust system could be captured and used for growing food? Repurposing these two wasted products would be a game changer for reducing the carbon footprint of roadway traffic and helping the agricultural industry feed a growing human population.

Three faculty members at Texas A&M University, Maria Barrufet, Elena Castell-Perez and Rosana Moreira, have written a white paper reporting their initial analysis and published it in hopes of obtaining the funding needed for doing formal, multidisciplinary research on the project.

“I started reading the related literature and did simulations of what was possible,” said Barrufet, professor and Baker Hughes Endowed Chair in the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering. “This is entirely realistic. Several proposals have already been written for large trucks and marine vehicle applications, but nothing has been implemented yet. And we are the first to think of a passenger car engine.”

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