I understand that this is not the solution, we need to phase out gas-powered engines in order to reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2030, and I understand that the filters would have to be changed and washed/recycled/disposed of constantly and couldn’t just sit on the tailpipe clogging up, I just don’t understand why a filter would be useless, wouldn’t it help just a little? Would it just ruin the cars? What about rooftop carbon capture devices? Is there nothing we can do to reduce pollution and carbon output from our current combustion engines?
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CO2 is a gas like oxygen or nitrogen; you can’t trap it with a filter, it’ll pass right through. Filters are only good for particulate matter like soot. If you want to trap a car’s exhaust CO2, you need an airtight barrier.
Cars put out a much larger volume of CO2 than you probably imagine. Burning a gallon of gas creates 8.887 kg of CO2, which at a density of 1.87 kg/m^3 takes up 4.75 cubic meters of space—*1,255 times larger than the gallon of gas you started with.* You’d need to tow around a miniature blimp full of CO2 to contain your car’s carbon output.
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