Mr. Fusion - We’re So Close To Making It Reality

One of the coolest fictional products in movie history was “Mr. Fusion”. In Back To the Future: Part 2 & 3, the time travelling DeLorean was powered by a futuristic fuel tank called, “Mr. Fusion”. The device would take trash and convert it into energy that the DeLorean could use to run. No one really questioned the actual science behind Mr. Fusion since it was so ridiculous for a car to run off trash.

Doc Brown Using Discarded Beer To Power His Time Machine

Cleantech Biofuels, is making the concept less ridiculous and into actual reality. According to the statistics of Cleantech, America accumulates 250 million tons of waste every year. Over half of that waste is disposed of at landfills, while the rest is recycled. Cleantech has devised a way to take this waste and turn it into fuel to be used in our vehicles.

There is a video on Cleantech’s site showing the process of making their fuel from waste. It’s a pretty complicated system, so I’ll try not to fudge it up. First, the waste is gathered, and the larger pieces of trash are filtered out, as there’s a size limit as to what can be used. The items that meet the size limit, are then put into their special device. The process of breaking down the waste, is by way of heat, steam, and agitation, using Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s) to eliminate the pollution. The VOC’s are removed, and the cellulosic filter process then begins. The cellulosic material gets filtered out of the waste, which is what’s used to create the fuel. The cellulosic is then emptied into a reaction chamber where the saccrafication process begins. This is the longest part of the process, and first nitric acid is added to refine the addition of pentose sugar. The mixture is then frozen to create hexose sugars. This mixture is then moved to a fermentation tank, where yeast is added. This creates the ethanol that is needed to create the fuel. After this, it’s move to a denaturing tank, where %5 gasoline is added to create fuel that can be used in your car.

That might be the longest paragraph I’ve ever written on Tech Kills. This technology is probably the coolest in “green tech” that I’ve seen. The fact that we can take our waste and turn it onto a clean renewable energy source is beyond extraordinary. I’m afraid that if Cleantech Biofuels doesn’t get permission to call it Mr. Fusion though, I fear that all is for not.