The first result of the work carried out in project is a reliable database on industrial CO2 and CO sources in Europe. The data can be used to generate interactive maps where specific framework conditions can be chosen, such as a certain area, CO2 emissions dedicated to a specific industry sector, etc., in order to be able to perform targeted analysis.
The European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) is a Europe-wide register that provides key environmental data from industrial facilities in European Union Member States and in Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Serbia and Switzerland. The register contains data reported annually by more than 30,000 industrial facilities covering 65 economic activities across Europe.
The current E-PRTR (2014) lists facilities with CO2 emissions above 0.1 Mt per year; total emissions of CO2 in Europe from these facilities amounted to 1,779 Mt in 2014. There are many facilities with emissions below 0.1 Mt per annum, but it is unlikely that capturing the emissions from these facilities for use in the process industry will be economically viable. The E-PRTR database shows that there is a wide range of CO2 sources across Europe producing more than sufficient CO2 emissions to meet the demand that could be utilised as a feedstock for the chemical industry. The major inhibiting factor in CO2 capture from point sources is the energy required for the capture and separation processes. The energy needed will both affect the cost and environmental implications of the process. Therefore, targeting the most pure streams of CO2 will keep energy requirements to a minimum, as smaller volumes of emitted gas will need to be processed to result in the same volume of purified CO2 when compared with a more dilute source. Primary targets for sourcing CO2 should focus on those sources with the highest concentration of CO2, (Hydrogen production, natural gas processing, ethylene oxide manufacture and ammonia production) as the higher concentration of CO2 reduces the cost of capture. However, larger volumes of CO2 are available from the iron and steel industry and cement industries, albeit at lower CO2 concentration. As industries look to decarbonise (particularly the iron and steel and cement sectors) there is an observed market pull to deploy CO2 utilisation technologies to provide an economically beneficial method of reducing CO2 emissions. As next-generation carbon capture technologies reach the market, other sources of CO2 may become increasingly economically viable.
Furthermore, within the first period of the project the project partners jointly developed a template in form of a excel table that will be used for the collection of all relevant information needed to identify the most promising pathways and products for carbon dioxide utilisation and the use of carbon monoxide. Sources of data describing the size of the market for the potential products to be made from CO2 and CO have been identified, both in terms of tonnages of product used within Europe and their economic value. The quantity of CO2 or CO utilised by synthesising these chemicals has been calculated, together with the amounts of H2 required during the synthesis. Strategies for assessing the environmental impact of the various different processes and routes to producing various chemicals have been devised.
