Project description
Biogenic organic wastes and CO2 conversion into biofuels
Advanced biofuels are crucial to the EU’s path toward climate neutrality, as they help reduce transport emissions and decrease reliance on fossil fuels. The EU-funded Fuels-C project aims to boost the availability of advanced biofuels for maritime and road transport by converting biogenic organic wastes and CO2 into two liquid and two gaseous biofuels. The project will develop and validate energy-efficient technologies at TRL 5, including bioelectrochemical CH4 and NH3 production, gasification, microbial electrosynthesis, and electroreduction. These biofuels can serve as drop-in fuels, and Fuels-C will also test them for electricity production in fuel cells. The project’s goal is to create new business opportunities and enhance the EU’s leadership in science, technology, and the biofuels market.
Objective
Advanced biofuels represent an important piece of the puzzle in the EU’s quest for climate neutrality as they contribute to decarbonising transport sectors and decrease the EU’s dependence on fossil fuels. Fuels-C aims to contribute to this quest by increasing the availability of two liquid and two gaseous advanced biofuels for maritime and road transports, produced from biogenic organic wastes and CO2. Fuels-C will develop an integrated platform of innovative energy-efficient conversion technologies validated at TRL5 including bioelectrochemically assisted CH4 production, bioelectrochemical NH3 production, gasification, microbial electrosynthesis, and electroreduction. Various biogenic residues (biodegradable and non-biodegradable) will be converted under mild conditions into CH4, NH3, formic acid and ethanol, by two main production routes, using renewable energy, thereby enabling efficient energy surplus storage as chemicals. The 4 biofuels can be used as drop-in, but Fuels-C will also test them in FCs for electricity production: gaseous NH3 and CH4 in SOFCs, liquid ethanol and formic acid in DLFCs. Power density, energy efficiency and stability of each process will be validated. The technologies will be modelled at process level, for the description of interfacial phenomena, and at system level, leading to an integrated processes Digital Twin. This second model, together with a feedstocks mapping tool, will provide relevant data for circularity assessment, cost calculation, benchmarking and replication in other relevant use cases. This is expected to create new businesses opportunities and strengthen the EU's leadership in science and technology and in the biofuels market. Fuels-C gathers an interdisciplinary consortium composed of EU’s prominent RTOs and Universities, a large industry providing feedstocks and four SMEs contributing to market uptake and global outreach. It will be supported by an international Advisory Board providing strategic advice.
Fields of science
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologyenvironmental biotechnologybioremediationbioreactors
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energy
- natural scienceschemical sciencesorganic chemistryorganic acids
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsfuel cells
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybiomaterialsbiofuels
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
08225 Terrassa
Spain