新创意：这家公司用温室气体做伏特加，碳足迹为负！

This carbon-negative vodka is made from captured CO2.

这种负碳伏特加（碳排放为负值，也就是说，生产时产生的碳要低于消耗的碳）是用采集的二氧化碳制成的。

A new brand of vodka from a startup called Air Co. is made from captured CO2 instead of yeast—and making a bottle of it is the equivalent of the daily carbon intake of eight trees.

一家名为Air Co.的创业公司推出了一种新款伏特加，它不是用酵母制成的，而是用采集的二氧化碳制成的，而且生产一瓶伏特加消耗的碳量相当于八棵树每天吸收的碳量。

“Our technology uses carbon dioxide and water along with electricity to create alcohol,” says Stafford Sheehan, an electrochemist and cofounder of the startup, which launched the product in a handful of bars, restaurants, and retailers in New York City today.

“我们的技术是用二氧化碳、水和电来生产酒精，”该初创公司联合创始人斯塔福德·希恩说道，他还是一位电化学家。该公司目前在纽约的少量酒吧、餐厅和零售店推出该产品。

“That’s inspired by photosynthesis in nature, where plants breathe in CO2. They take up water, and they use energy in the form of sunlight to make things like sugars and to make other higher-value hydrocarbons, with oxygen as the sole by-product. Same thing with our process: The only by-product is oxygen.”

“自然界的光合作用启发了我们。植物吸入二氧化碳，并吸收水分，然后利用阳光提供的能量合成糖类和其他高价值的碳氢化合物，而这一过程中唯一的副产物是氧气。我们的生产过程也是如此：唯一的副产物也是氧气。”

While making a typical bottle of vodka might produce around 13 pounds of greenhouse gases, Air Co.’s product is actually carbon negative, removing a pound of CO2 for every bottle produced.

通常生产一瓶伏特加可能会产生大约13磅温室气体，而Air Co.的产品却是负碳的，每生产一瓶伏特加会消耗1磅二氧化碳。

The company captures CO2 from nearby factories—appropriately, much of it comes from traditional alcohol production.

该公司从附近的工厂采集二氧化碳，而且大部分二氧化碳恰好来自传统的酒精生产。

Then, inside its own Brooklyn distillery, the team uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen is emitted, and the hydrogen is combined with the CO2.

然后，该团队在他们位于布鲁克林的酿酒厂里用电把水分解成氢和氧，之后氧气被释放出来，而氢和二氧化碳化合（生成酒精）。

“We do that in a reactor with a special catalyst and that’s kind of our secret sauce,” says Sheehan.

“我们在专用催化剂反应堆里完成这一过程，这个反应堆就像我们的秘密武器，”希恩说道。

The combination makes alcohol and water. The final step is to remove the water through distillation.

（氢和二氧化碳）化合生成酒精和水。最后一步是通过蒸馏除去水分。

The whole process, including the still, runs on solar power “so the overall lifecycle carbon intensity of all the energy that we use is minimized, and in the end, we get a product that is net carbon negative.”

整个过程，包括蒸馏，都是利用太阳能完成的，“因此我们使用的所有能源的整个生命周期的碳排放强度被最小化，最终我们得到的产品是负碳的。”