Alternative routes for basic chemicals production using hydrogen as feedstock

Project Information

ALCHEMHY

Grant agreement ID: 101177996

DOI

10.3030/101177996

EC signature date 27 September 2024

Start date 1 October 2024

End date 30 September 2028

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 9 996 078,75

EU contribution

€ 9 996 078,75

Coordinated by

FUNDACION CIRCE CENTRO DE INVESTIGACION DE RECURSOS Y CONSUMOS ENERGETICOS
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ALCHEMHY (Alternative routes for basic chemicals production using hydrogen as feedstock)

Reporting period: 2024-10-01 to 2026-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Ammonia and methanol are key platform chemicals whose fossil fuel reliant production processes contribute significantly to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Ammonia accounts for 1.8% of global CO2 emissions from the use of fossil-based grey hydrogen from Steam Methane Reforming combined with Haber-Bosch. Methanol production, mainly from catalytic conversion of syngas from steam methane reforming of fossil fuels, contributes 0.3% of global CO2 emissions.
Alchemhy develops and upscales novel fully electrified production routes for ammonia and methanol, using green hydrogen and renewable electricity. The processes are to be flexible enough to respond to renewable electricity fluctuations, enabling zero-emission chemical production that suits green electricity.
The project investigates and scales up four distinct reaction technologies with 4 new prototypes:
For ammonia production: Direct Electrochemical Synthesis of Ammonia (DESA) and Magnetic Heated Sorption-Enhanced Reactor (MSER).
For methanol production: Small Flexible Methanol Reactor (SFMR) and Plasma Catalytic Hydrogenation (PCH).
Tested will occur in four pilot plants across Spain, Italy, and Belgium. Digital tools, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models, Digital Twins, and reduced-order models (ROMs) will accompany the chemical process investigations leading to control systems and a Decision Support System (DSS) underpinned by techno economic analysis for integrating the novel processes into existing renewable energy and hydrogen value chains.
Scale up of these processes would: decarbonise ammonia and methanol production with downstream effects in other chemical products, decouple key components of the chemical industry from fossil fuels improving competitiveness as electricity costs decrease and security of supply through decoupling, align production of ammonia and methanol with the technical and market characteristics of a renewable energy system including renewable electricity generation, green hydrogen.
It also contributes to increasing knowledge in low and zero carbon chemical processes, chemical industry value chains, and digitalisation of processes, control, and economic integration.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

It is still an early stage for a demonstration project of this scale, just 18 months in at March 2026, but Alchemhy has delivered solid scientific groundwork across all four chemical routes.

For ammonia, the MSER team identified its best-performing combination of catalyst and sorbent materials and showed that the reactor can enhance ammonia formation "in situ" by continuously removing product as it forms, while a first conceptual design for the induction-heating system was completed. The DESA team, working with proton-conducting ceramic materials, established a manufacturing route that reaches near-full density at a substantially lower firing temperature than the standard process, and screened several candidate electrode materials to identify the most stable options.

For methanol, the consortium completed the basic design of the flexible methanol demonstration plant at TRL5; most of the equipment has now been procured, with construction and start-up planned for mid-2026. In parallel, several new copper-based catalyst formulations were developed and benchmarked against commercial references, with encouraging early results. The plasma-driven PCH route produced a particularly important scientific finding. Experimental results showed that the plasma-catalytic route to methanol (PCH) is unlikely to be viable for scale-up within the project's timeframe, and the consortium has proposed redirecting that scale-up effort towards plasma-based production of green syngas instead.

Beyond the laboratory, the project set up the modelling framework needed for its future digital twin and reduced-order models, completed the technical specifications for all four planned pilot systems, and - together with its industrial partners - defined real-world ammonia and methanol use cases that will anchor the project's techno-economic assessment. A full communication infrastructure was also put in place: a public website, social media channels, two newsletters, a press release and a promotional video, alongside active collaboration with several other EU-funded hydrogen and decarbonisation projects.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Contributions so far are scientific rather than industrial - but they are genuinely significant.

The clearest example concerns how methanol yield is measured in plasma-catalytic reactors. Using rigorous, real-time gas analysis rather than the offline method conventionally used across the field, ALCHEMHY researchers from University of Antwerp Plasmant group found that methanol selectivity in these reactors is far lower than widely cited literature values - and, more importantly, that the standard offline measurement method itself severely overestimates methanol selectivity. This is a methodological correction with implications well beyond ALCHEMHY for the whole plasma-catalysis research community, and has been submitted for peer-reviewed publication.

On the ammonia side, the MSER team's induction-heated catalyst-sorbent system achieved a record ammonia conversion for this type of magnetically heated reactor, with results soon to be published. For DESA, the team identified a processing approach that allows the ceramic electrolyte to reach near-full density at a substantially lower firing temperature than the conventional process - a meaningful practical improvement, since it lowers the energy and cost of manufacturing these cells. In methanol catalysis, a newly developed catalyst outperformed a commercial reference catalyst in methanol selectivity across the whole temperature range tested - a promising lead for the project's flexible reactor route.