Canberra, Jun 22 (IANS): Carbon neutral cars have moved a step closer to reality after Australian scientists developed a new way to successfully use solar energy to turn naturally-occurring carbon dioxide (CO2) into a "clean" synthetic form of natural gas.

In collaboration with Australia's national scientific agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, scientists from the University of Adelaide have successfully used a new "catalyst" to combine carbon dioxide with hydrogen to efficiently produce methane and water.

According to University of Adelaide Ph.D. candidate Renata Lippi, the development could eventually help engineers and scientists to come up with a viable solution to phasing out fossil-fuelled cars while continuing to use carbon-based technologies, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Capturing carbon from the air and utilising it for industrial processes is one strategy for controlling CO2 emissions and reducing the need for fossil fuels," Lippi said in a statement.

"But for this to be economically viable, we need an energy efficient process that utilises CO2 as a carbon source."

"Research has shown that the hydrogen can be produced efficiently with solar energy. But combining the hydrogen with CO2 to produce methane is a safer option than using hydrogen directly as an energy source and allows the use of existing natural gas infrastructure," Lippi added.

Crucially for the future development of carbon neutral cars, only a tiny amount of the catalyst is required to kick-start the conversion.

"What we've produced is a highly active, highly selective (producing almost pure methane without side products) and stable catalyst that will run on solar energy," Doonan said.

"This makes carbon neutral fuel from CO2 a viable option."