It may sound like science fiction but today it is a viable science project. Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology have come up with a solar reactor that can convert water and carbon dioxide into hydrogen and carbon monoxide.

This is known as synthesis gas.Thanks to the Fischer – Tropsch synthesis process you can convert the synthesis gas or syngas into liquid fuels like petrol or kerosene. The fuel produced in this manner will have absolutely no carbon footprint. It will be the more environmentally friendly production of fuel.

The process could be used to fuel the current breed of electric cars that run on solar power. The solar power would be used for making the solar reactor work and then the Fischer – Tropsch synthesis process would take over to form fuel for the car. The scientists working on the project say that the first solar fuel production facility may be just about 10 years away.

They hope that the solar fuel production facility will be able to produce 16,000 liters of petrol in a period of 8 hours. Such an output capacity will sure help solve the fuel crisis. Here’s looking forward to more interesting developments in this particular science project in the future.