The key new technology in this project is the new eSMR reactor, that we for the first time (on a global basis) use at industrial scale. The basis of our innovation is to pilot a novel approach to producing methanol, never before piloted beyond our project partners lab scale prototype, where we use an electrically heated stream methane reformer (eSMR) instead of present firing of natural gas in the fired reformer (used in conventional methanol synthesis). The scientific background of the innovation is a successful lab prototype and many publications describing parts of the work in journals including Science. The eSMR technology can allow very compact reactor designs, up to 100 times smaller than current SMR plants, which combined with higher energy efficiency and no directly associated CO2 emission, makes the eSMR reactor extremely commercially attractive for synthesis gas production. The cost-efficient and scalable solution can be built as a realistic alternative to fossil methanol production. In the project Topsoe delivers the process plant to Molgas (LNG company) that in turn want to market sustainable ship fuels. We have a first customer in the project, that operates two feeder container vessels running on methanol. With the assistance of leading research groups covering both optimizing resource streams (NTNU) and ecosystem simulations (CERTH), we develop a comprehensive plan to pathways of bringing eSMR-based plant designs to efficient and widespread use in Europa.
The project will enable production of renewable methanol from using our eSMR approach, to enable a cost closer to the fossil alternative, and to study how this approach can be successfully scaled. The project’s impact is significant towards supporting EU’s ambitious targets to cut emissions in the maritime sector.
One of our main objectives is to provide an ecosystem simulation platform that predicts energy efficiency (using the demonstrator as the case) with +80% accuracy, by combining process simulations (by TOPSOE), resource simulations (by NTNU) and value chain simulations (by CERTH), utilising the industrial know-how while we bring state-of-the-art simulation approaches to methanol production (and its ecosystem). Another objective is to improve carbon efficiency from present 40% of fossil derived methanol defining a pathway to +90% carbon efficiency.
We develop the project in three phases. In the first we develop the generic models. This covers frameworks to agree to model information relevant to biomethanol plant sizes and requirements, which in turn is built on information in areas such as environmental impact, cost impact, feedstock availability, logistics solutions and more. This is then used to build simulation models of plants and ecosystems, focusing on key unsolved areas such as energy integration with the biogas plant as well as hydrogen integration. Both of these feed into the plant design, where the size is also set and next the detailed design. We target copy-paste plant designs, as design is a substantial part of cost. From the plant design we get the key process-module of the eSMR technology, which is then shipped to the next step. Here we demonstrate an operational plant, and both validate our approaches (including the world’s first industrial pilot of eSMR and the biogas-eSMR integration). All the project experience is next used in developing the tools to configure plants and value chains, that are then tested on conceptual designs (covering business models, environmental impact and more) for different plant sizes (including considerable scale-ups from the demonstrator plant).
