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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MefCO2 (Synthesis of methanol from captured carbon dioxide using surplus electricity)

Teaser

Summary

Aim: To develop an innovative green chemical production technology which contributes significantly to the European objectives of decreasing CO2 emissions and increasing renewable energy usage, thereby improving Europeâ€™s competitiveness in the field.
Concept: The overall concept underpinning the project lies in the utilisation of ordinarily emitted greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and hydrogen, produced from surplus renewable electricity into a widely-useable platform chemical, methanol. The technology is being designed in a modular intermediate-scale, with the aim of being able to adapt it to varying plant sizes and gas composition.
Advantages: The primary advantages of this technology shall be its flexibility, medium-scale operation (deployed â€œat exhaust locationâ€), and facile integration capacities.
Benefits:
- Mitigation of exhaust carbon dioxide and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by replacing methanol produced from fossil fuels (natural gas or coal) with methanol produced from waste 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 generation surpluses can now be used to produce valuable methanol.
- Production of methanol as a versatile chemical for further conversion. The EU is a net importer of methanol and MefCO2 results can contribute to the reduction of imports. Moreover, methanol can be directly blended with gasoline or transformed into fuel additives such as DME or MTBE thus reducing fossil fuel imports and improving air quality due to the improved combustion. In addition, MefCO2\'s renewable methanol and fuel derivatives comply with the requisites set by the amendments to the RED directive and can be considered advance fuels. This characteristic allows to double count renewable methanol\'s energy content in order to comply with the renewable energy content in transportation fuels and the minimum advanced fuel content suggested by the EC.

Work performed

WP1 aimed to produce copper-based catalysts for methanol synthesis in the sustainable manner. 92 new catalysts have been synthesised, characterised and its performance tested (1 pending patent). WP1 has potentially improved upon the standard industrial methanol synthesis catalyst, which, if borne out on the industrial scale, would be of significant impact.
Within WP2, a system of five parallel reactors was built for catalyst screening and to study the effects of variation of the process conditions on its performance. This WP aimed to discover the influence of alkaline-earth metal oxide on the characteristics of Cu-based catalysts. The physicochemical properties of alkaline-earth oxides-based Cu catalysts were characterized and the catalytic activity for CO2 hydrogenation to methanol was evaluated for further simulations. 43 different catalysts have been tested and, among them, the best 14 were subjected to 200 different operating conditions, as is the scope of MefCO2 project.
The integration of the interfaces at a technical level is part of WP3. D3.2 Plant engineering (and its associated MS7- Engineering completed) is complete, the corresponding permitting activities carried out and the conditioning and construction works have already stated.
As for WP4, HYGS is integrating its 600 kWel PEM electrolyser with improved dynamic response.
In WP5 several disseminations actions have been carried out aiming to build awareness of project results and maximize its commercial exploitation potential.

Final results

-Technological expected impact(s)
Starting from a commercial (Cu/ZnO/Al2O3) catalysts, a new generation with increased activity and selectivity, able to deal with impurities in different CO2 containing streams such as the flue gases from a power plant generation has been developed. Promising Ni-Ga-Si catalysts have been also considered. A flexible operation will be demonstrated as a consequence of the process conditions optimization.
In terms of process integration, extensive work is being carried out in order to integrate carbon capture with the methanol synthesis in order to optimise energy consumption of the process which can impact on the process economics. An advanced control system is being developed in order to provide flexibility to a process that needs to encompass both methanol synthesis with the normal operation of a power generation plant and hydrogen production (strongly dependent on energy prices and grid requirements).
A preliminary thermo-economic model has been developed.

- Economic/Social expected impact(s)
MefCO2 aims to provide an economically sustainable business case for carbon capture (both CCS and CCU) by turning CO2 into a revenue generator that can partially compensate CCS costs and contribute to its deployment.
MefCO2â€™s Green methanol complies with Annex IX of the amended RED directive (renewable liquid and gaseous transport fuels of non-biological origin/carbon capture and utilisation for transport purposes) and its contribution towards renewable energy use in transportation fuels is twice their energy content. Therefore, MefCO2 fuels can have a premium price over its fossil fuel methanol.
Methanol market potential in the EU could significantly increase in some applications:
Direct blending of methanol with gasoline in the EU-28 is currently much lower than the 3% v/v limit and nearly 2.2 Mtons/y of additional demand could be unlocked.
Methanol for bunker fuel, DME, MTBE, MTO/MTG...
MefCO2 results could also contribute to the reduction of the dependency on methanol imports in the EU-28. 6.3 Mtons (Directive 98/70/EC, as amended by Directive 2009/30/EC) where imported between Dec 2014-Nov 2015.
Methanol plants using MefCO2 technology can create number of direct jobs comparable to the conventional fossil-based methanol plants. Up to 120 direct jobs could be created for a high capacity plant. Indirect job creation can estimated using a multiple between 5.3 and 9. Therefore, job creation can be estimated between 750 and 1200 jobs per plant.

- Environmental expected impact(s)
MefCO2 pilot plant will use over 1.5t per day CO2 and 1t per day of methanol will be produced. Scaling up MefCO2 concept can offset significant amounts of CO2 since methanol is one of the most versatile chemicals and its demand is sufficiently high. However, MefCO2 most relevant contribution to the descarbonisation of industrial processes and the energy system in the EU is that allows for a more favourable business case for CCS when CCS is coupled with green methanol production.
Green methanol can also reduce the fossil fuel consumption. Up to 1 Mtoe/year of gasoline consumption could be reduced if methanol blending reached the 3% set in the regulation. Green methanol could not only contribute to reaching the 10% target of renewable fuels use in transportation but also complying, if not exceeding, with the non binding target of 0.5% share of advanced fuels.
MefCO2 concept can also have positive impacts in terms of renewable energy use. Green methanol can act as energy vector storing renewable energy surplus thus contributing to grid stabilisation. Fast ramping electrolysers can also contribute to the grid stability by providing ancillary services which could become an additional source of revenue.