PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Energy-intensive industries need to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and fossil fuel energy consumption. One potential way of achieving this is through the hydrogenation of carbon dioxide (involving the reaction of hydrogen with CO2 to produce methane and water, known as the Sabatier process). This process is well known but has never been implemented at industrial scale due to several technical limitations, such as the need for hydrogen and temperature issues. A recently developed laboratory reactor has succeeded in capturing GHG emissions and producing synthetic fuels and/or oil products using an innovative catalytic hydrothermal process.
OBJECTIVES
The LIFE CO2 TO FUEL project’s main objective was to build and test a pilot plant able to capture 800 tonnes of CO2 generated by the steel production process and transform it into hydrocarbons. The goal was to demonstrate that the innovative process technology used in the pilot plant is both efficient and profitable and that the resulting hydrocarbons can be re-used in the production chain of an energy-intensive steelmaking plant.
The demonstration of a cost-effective technology for capturing CO2 and converting it into new sources of energy and hydrocarbons would enable energy-intensive industries (including steelmaking companies) to reduce their GHG emissions and energy requirements. These companies participate in the EU Emissions Trading System.
The expected results for this project were as follows:
- Demonstration of a pilot plant that captures CO2 from an exhaust furnace and converts it into methane via hydrogenation.
- Cost-effective production of hydrogen using a new catalytic hydrothermal process that generates oxyhydrogen (synthetic fuels and oil products).
- Validation tests using 800 tonnes of CO2 per year (one year of validation).
- Environmental quantification and validation.
- Development of dissemination actions to ensure replicability and transferability.
RESULTS
The project made some progress during its first year of implementation regarding CO2 capture and concentration from the furnace, and determination of the conditions of the hydrogenation process at lab scale. However, it reached a total blockage in 2020 due to technical difficulties and disagreements between the two beneficiaries. Several alternatives were assessed, but none of the solutions proposed was found feasible. As a result, the project was early-terminated at a low level of implementation, and none of the objectives initially set were reached.
