As Elon Musk’s Space X launched its Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time a few weeks ago with the aim to send a Tesla car and mannequin towards Mars’ orbit, we ask could life on Mars be getting closer?

Space X is aiming to send the first humans to Mars by 2024; one of the main problems to overcome is how humans will generate energy for a possible colony on Mars. There are a number of ideas being tossed around the space community, including the obvious choice of solar panels.

However, Space X wants to go in another direction by taking advantage of Mars’ atmospheric conditions, which are primarily made up of CO₂ at approximately 95%. One way they are looking at doing so is through the Sabatier Reaction, a process that could take advantage of Mars’ atmosphere and be the key to powering future colonies on Mars.

The Sabatier Reaction uses CO₂ and hydrogen to produce water and methane, which can be injected into a gas network to produce electricity, via a catalyst, and is demonstrated by the reaction below:

CO₂ + 4H₂ → CH₄ + 2H₂O    at approx. 300-400^°C        - Sabatier Reaction

2H₂O → 2H₂ + O₂                  and 1.23V of electricity     - Electrolysis of Water

These reactions are already being used on the International Space Station to recover water from exhaled CO₂ from astronauts and there are actually many other applications for this reaction closer to home as well. A lot of our clients use natural gas and biogas to power combined heat and power (CHP) engines to produce electricity, heat and CO_2­, which are used to operate their sites. Being able to capture the CO_2, and produce hydrogen from the electrolysis of water, could be a way of recovering more methane to power their CHP engines and reducing CO₂ escaping to the atmosphere.

For an example, take an AD plant with a biogas CHP engine, claiming Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) payments, injecting 5 million m^³ of biomethane into the gas network per year and, we assume, that the biogas produced was made up of 50% methane, 45% CO₂ and 5% of other trace gases. By installing a Sabatier Process to recycle the stripped CO₂, you could almost double the methane produced and you could also double the RHI income and the gas! At the moment, lots of sites recover the CO₂ from the digestion process, but they compress it and sell it as CO₂ to the food and beverage industry. If you can convert it into methane, then you are quid’s in (depending on the capital cost and running cost of the process).

If you would like more information please talk to myself or Oli Coe on 024 7669 8899.