in this week s mission ahead, one company is on a mission to lower the airline s carbon footprint. cnn s clare duffy has the story. reporter: what if i told you that it s possible to pull the fuel that power ours airplanes right out of thin air. a start-up known as air company would tell you it is. we re taking carbon dioxide, combining with hydrogen and turning it into our fuel which becomes the face-off for many other things as well. so what we re looking at is a water eltroll sis system. reporter: it sounded a bit complicated. so we asked dr. sheehan to walk us through process. he is the company s ceo. in this reactor is where we put our catalysts. that s our proprietary materials. that s our secret sauce. the hydrogen is produced from the water. so we start with water here. we take that water and split into it hydrogen and oxygen. the oxygen is the only emission. the hydrogen mixes with the carbon dioxide, and that s turned into the product of our
a doctorate in chemical physics from yale. that s our proprietary materials, our secret sauce at air company. the hydrogen is produced with the water. we start with water. we split it no hydrogen oxygen. the hydrogen mixes with the carbon dioxide and then that s turned into the product of our catalytic reaction. this is our distillation it looks, i guess, techie than like like a distillery. reporter: the amount of co2 it uses to produce the fuel will be roughly the amount that s put back into the atmosphere during the flight. so unlike traditional jet fuel, this process isn t adding more harmful carbon pollution into our atmosphere. how soon can this be use on a regular commercial flight? we re testing on a commercial