EU transport and power generation account for approximately one-third of all CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion each, whereas the remaining one-third comes mainly from industry and domestic heating. Current decarbonization measures are focused principally on electrification and fuel switching. However, these solutions are not suitable for the “harder to abate” sectors, such as heavy-duty road transport as well as other energy and industry sectors, due to payload, autonomy and/or fuel supply, among other issues. Heavy-duty road vehicles are the second largest contributors of GHG emissions in transportation after cars, accounting annually at the European level for more than 200 kTCO2, being additionally the only economic sector whose emissions are growing despite the multiple mitigation efforts undertaken. At the same time, renewable fuels have the lowest uptake in transport, relying still on fossil fuels for 94% of its energy needs and thus, from imports. Consequently, this sector constitutes one of the main challenges to comply with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. In addition, the European Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy for 2050 establishes that nearly all cars, vans and buses, as well as new heavy-duty vehicles, will need to be zero-emissions, encouraging a 90% reduction of GHG emissions from transport. This strategy also demands zero-emissions at airports and ports as well as stationed vessels and aircrafts feed with renewable power instead of fossil energy.
There is a wide variety of low-carbon or zero-carbon fuels for use instead of fossil fuels oriented towards the decarbonization of ICE. Nevertheless, these are difficult to interchange between common power generation systems (PGS) -both mobile and stationary- since they have been designed and optimized for a specific fuel molecular structure, composition and properties. Hence, the main target of ALL-IN Zero is to develop a multi-fuel system that will feed low, zero or carbon-negative fuels like ammonia, natural gas, biogas or alcohols among other easy-handling fuels, into a Compact Membrane Reactor (CMR), producing an intermediate temporary energy vector (i.e. hydrogen). The temporary energy vector will be consumed in situ by ICE and FCS to generate electrical and mechanical power with zero emissions. In addition, this technology will implement efficient energy recovery strategies by means of thermal, mechanical and electrical energy exploitation to sustain CMR operation and will turn emissions of CO2 stream coming from CMR (in case they exist due to the fuel type) into a business opportunity by means of efficient Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) techniques to produce synthetic fuels, among other high-value uses.
Considering previously obtained promising results, the specific objectives of the project are:
• To obtain a preliminary design of the coupled system integrating CMR with current power generation systems (ICE and FCS), and to identify the critical parameters and systems sizing for the selected applications.
• To design and develop a CMR, composed of a multi-functional catalyst and an electrochemical protonic cell (with planar geometry), for the efficient conversion of different kinds of fuels into H2 as a temporary energy vector that can be directly used in situ by the subsequent PGS.
• To characterize and optimize the ICE and FCS power generation systems to define rules for designing the best engine and fuel cell-specific performance (ICE/FCS hybridization) and take full advantage of efficiency, autonomy, dynamic response, and other power system properties in accordance with each specific application.
• To generate the modeling framework consisting of individual models of CMR, ICE and FCS to identify the requirements for the integrated system and to develop a virtual dedicated heat recovery system to maximize the integrated system efficiency for flexible fuel operation for each PGS.
• To develop and optimize the auxiliary components required for the CMR-PGS matching and to develop control strategies dynamic enough that involve the individual and joint operation of the CMR-PGS.
• To benchmark the performance of both PGS operating with the H2 coming from a tank and from the CMR in a virtual vehicle model in realistic operating conditions to assess process configuration, technical, economic and environmental implications and advantages of the proposed technology.
