Can dry ice be used to store energy?

[playaj20008]

Im no physicist, so correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I can tell from what I'm reading on Wikipedia, CO2 gas takes up about 808x as much space as solid CO2.

 

Now atmospheric pressure is 14.7 PSI. So if you just filled an unsealed tank with CO2 gas it would be 14.7 PSI in there.

 

So, if you filled that tank instead with dry ice, then you'd be storing the equivalent of 808x as much gas, which would be the equivalent of nearly 12,000 PSI.

 

And because dry ice takes time to sublime from solid into gas, then you would maybe not even need a tank with a very high pressure to hold it since you could just let the excess bleed off, and your tank of fuel would still last the day. Or maybe pressurizing the tank, or keeping it cooled would allow you to prevent it from subliming for several days. I'm not sure.

 

But it seems to me that dry ice would be a much better solution than compressed air for an automobile. No super high pressure tanks, you can fill up in seconds, you have a ton more range, and you maybe wouldn't lose pressure as the fuel runs out because you'd be constantly repressurzing a smaller tank.

 

Is this idea crazy?

[John Cuthber]

A tank full of CO2 would melt to a liquid under pressure, but the idea is still OK. It has been used for model aircraft and I guess you could use it for other things. Whether or not it's an improvement on compressed air is another matter but at least the pressure would be relatively constant as you said. You might need to heat the tank to get the CO2 to boil fast enough.

[insane_alien]

yes it can be used but it is neither efficient or practical on any reasonable scale.

[YT2095]

Dry ice- Compressed air - Liquid Nitrogen.....

 

not even Close to cost effect, but the Latter Do at least have some environmentaly friendly features to them.

[MrMongoose]

They do?

[Reaper]

It can certainly be done and the idea (of compressed gas cars) isn't new. Of course, just only using CO2 isn't necessarily cost effective, but you might want to read about the cars that run on compressed air:

 

http://www.theaircar.com/

 

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/air-car.htm (Article a bit outdated)

 

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/116641/Car_Runs_on_Compressed_Air

 

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I don't know if they are already available for sale yet elsewhere in the world, but the car is cheaper than regular ones, the "fuel" is much cheaper, and maintenance costs are extremely low compared to conventional ones.