Robust and flexible to synthetic methane
Synthetic energy carriers are carbon-neutral and make renewable energy transportable and storable in the long term. Synthetically produced methane is one of them. The problem: The production involves rather high energy losses; moreover, existing processes require the methane to be purified. To change this, Empa researchers have developed a new, optimized reactor concept for methanation.
A successful energy transition requires energy sources that are climate-friendly; this means: as few CO2 emissions as possible – ideally none at all – during production and use. Synthetic energy carriers – i.e. those that are obtained from renewable energy through chemical conversion processes – are one of the most promising options. The use of such energy carriers only produces as much CO2 as was previously removed from the atmosphere for their production.
Artificially produced methane falls into this category. "Synthetic gas offers enormous potential if it is produced from atmospheric CO2 and renewably generated hydrogen," explains Christian Bach, head of Empa's Automotive Powertrain Technologies lab. "However, for hydrogen production you need a lot of water as well as renewable electricity. In our mobility demonstrator move, we thus want to extract not only CO2 but also the water for hydrogen production directly from the atmosphere with the help of a CO2 collector from the ETH spin-off Climeworks." In future, such concepts could be implemented in desert regions lacking liquid water supplies.
However, the production of synthetic methane from hydrogen and CO2 – so-called methanation– has its pitfalls. This is because methane produced by such a catalytic process still contains hydrogen, which prevents it from being fed directly into the gas grid. Empa researchers Florian Kiefer, Marin Nikolic, Andreas Borgschulte and Panayotis Dimopoulos Eggenschwiler have therefore developed a new reactor concept, in which the formation of hydrogen on the product side is prevented. This leads to a simpler process control and a better suitability for dynamic operation, e.g. for coupling with unsteadily available renewable energies. The project is supported by the Canton of Zurich, Avenergy Suisse, Migros, Lidl Switzerland, Armasuisse, Swisspower and the ETH Board.
Artificially produced methane falls into this category. "Synthetic gas offers enormous potential if it is produced from atmospheric CO2 and renewably generated hydrogen," explains Christian Bach, head of Empa's Automotive Powertrain Technologies lab. "However, for hydrogen production you need a lot of water as well as renewable electricity. In our mobility demonstrator move, we thus want to extract not only CO2 but also the water for hydrogen production directly from the atmosphere with the help of a CO2 collector from the ETH spin-off Climeworks." In future, such concepts could be implemented in desert regions lacking liquid water supplies.
However, the production of synthetic methane from hydrogen and CO2 – so-called methanation– has its pitfalls. This is because methane produced by such a catalytic process still contains hydrogen, which prevents it from being fed directly into the gas grid. Empa researchers Florian Kiefer, Marin Nikolic, Andreas Borgschulte and Panayotis Dimopoulos Eggenschwiler have therefore developed a new reactor concept, in which the formation of hydrogen on the product side is prevented. This leads to a simpler process control and a better suitability for dynamic operation, e.g. for coupling with unsteadily available renewable energies. The project is supported by the Canton of Zurich, Avenergy Suisse, Migros, Lidl Switzerland, Armasuisse, Swisspower and the ETH Board.