Project description
Low-cost, renewable electricity thanks to biomass-based carbon-neutral liquefied natural gas
Between 1990 and 2020, greenhouse gas emissions fell by 32 % across sectors in the EU. The transport sector showed a 7 % increase over the same period. The renewable and non-fossil version of liquefied natural gas, bioLNG, is set to significantly impact non-electrified transport. Produced by processing organic waste flows, it can be made anywhere anaerobic digestion occurs. The EU-funded CarbonNeutralLNG project will up the ante, delivering truly carbon-neutral bioLNG by harnessing low-cost renewable electricity in a proposed hybrid catalytic process. The process will combine chemical catalytic with biological methanation and electromethanogenesis and will directly convert the electrical current to methane via anaerobic respiration in microbes.
Objective
CarbonNeutralLNG targets the truly carbon neutral use of biogenic carbon to replace fossil fuels for the transportation sector with renewable electricity enhanced bioLNG. Non-electric transport will depend on liquid and gaseous energy carriers like Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). BioLNG is particularly advantageous as high density liquid fuel for the heavy duty truck and the marine transportation sector. A proposed hybrid catalytic process combines chemical catalytic and biological methanation with electro methanogenesis in order to reduce process complexity and maximise carbon efficiency. Low-cost renewable electricity will be the main driver for reduced marginal costs for the bioLNG’s production.
The experimental work addresses the hybrid catalytic process chain’s main units and focuses on the development and testing of a “Sorption enhanced e-gasifier” (WP1), and additively manufactured “Chemical Catalytic Raw Methanation” reactor (WP2) and the “Biological Methane conditioning” (WP3) by means of biological methanation and electro-methanogensis.
Work packages 4 and 5 will include an “Impact assessment at environmental and socio-economic level” (WP4) and a “Roadmap to replication: market and policy assessment” (WP5). They will mainly address monitoring and avoidance of fugitive methane emissions facing the upcoming Regulation (EU) on “Methane emissions reduction in the energy sector” and will in particular prepare technical and legal recommendations to avoid methane emissions in LNG infrastructures. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based “Advanced Process Control and Scale-up considerations” (WP6) and the operation of the complete process chain will finally provide a proof-of-concept for the proposed process at TRL 3-4.
The work package „Coordination and Dissemination” (WP7) establishes a “Technology transfer and Dissemination Multiplier Board” with stakeholders and policy makers and will include several workshops, conferences and social media communication.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsliquid fuels
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsfossil energynatural gas
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybiomaterialsbiofuels
- social sciencessocial geographytransportsustainable transport
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsenergy conversion
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
91058 ERLANGEN
Germany