Aim: develop an innovative green chemical production technology contributing to the EU objectives of decreasing CO2 emissions and increasing renewable energy usage improving Europe’s competitiveness.
Concept: ordinarily emitted CO2 and H2 produced from surplus renewable electricity into methanol. Technology designed in a modular intermediate-scale, able to adapt it to varying plant sizes and gas composition.
Benefits:
-Mitigation of exhaust CO2 and reduction of GHG by replacing methanol produced from fossil fuels (NGV or coal) with methanol produced from CO2 and renewable energy.
-Stabilisation of electric grid by the consumption of the electric energy at its peaks. MefCO2 allows to increase the power supplied from non-manageable renewable energy resources since surpluses can be used to produce valuable methanol. Fast ramping electrolysers provide ancillary services and replace fast acting fossil generation such as gas turbines.
-Production of methanol as a versatile chemical for further conversion. The EU is a net importer of methanol and MefCO2 results contribute to the reduction of imports. Low carbon footprint methanol can be directly blended with gasoline or transformed into fuel additives (DME or MTBE),reducing fossil fuel imports and improving air quality due to the improved combustion. Depending on the CO2 source, MefCO2 low carbon methanol and fuel derivatives could comply with the RED requirements and be considered as renewable fuel of non-biological origin.
Conclusions: the technology has been successfully deployed at RWEs lignite fired power plant in Germnay producing up to 1 ton of methanol from1.5 tons of CO2 captured. MefCO2 technology can be adapted to any CO2 source either from fossil origin such as steel mills, cement kilns, refineries, power plants, etc. Key components of the pilot process were a fast acting PEM 600kW electrolyser able to ramp up or down H2 production within seconds. This flexible operation is highly suited to adapt to power prices created by fluctuating renewable power and for grid stabilisation contributing to the increase of renewable power in the grid. A fast response rectifier patent was filed. Other key component is a methanol reactor able to modify its output (demonstrated in test campaigns). Unlike standard chemical process designed for steady operation, MefCO2 reactor was steadily operated not only at its nameplate capacity but also at 40% of it. It was able to ramp up and down production within minutes. The modular reactor design can be scaled up and plant output can be adapted. The combination of fast ramping a electrolysis unit and a flexible methanol reactor allows MefCO2 concept to operate without oversizing the electrolysis unit and using intermediate H2 storage that would be required in a conventional methanol plant. Methanol produced from renewable energy for H2 production turns into an energy vector for renewable energy storage with higher energy density than H2 that is easily stored and transported. In terms of novel catalyst development and process optimisation through multiscale process optimisation, a comprehensive work was carried out. More than 100 catalysts were synthetized, characterised and tested in different operation conditions. A patent for a new method of synthesis for high performance catalyst was filed.
