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Project

LUMEN (R-9857)

Two major challenges we face as a society are securing our future energy supply by switching from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources, and reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (EC 2030 Energy Strategy). With precompetitive industrial research, LUMEN addresses both challenges simultaneously: it aims to develop an integrated lab-scale demonstrator to build an energy storage buffer, while reducing CO2 emissions, using sunlight as a sustainable energy source. This pre-competitive industrial research provides the basis for a final translation into an industrial process, thus offering commercial opportunities for stakeholders in the value chain: material producers (catalyst production), equipment producers (reaction production) and chemical companies in the region. Furthermore, this will accelerate the energy transition and the reduction of C02 emissions, and emissions, and contribute to the realisation of the targets agreed in these areas. In addition, it will serve as a model project in the region, and LUMEN fits in perfectly with the regional business community and the objectives within the Energy pillar of Interreg Flanders-The Netherlands. Our future energy system needs a storage buffer. This is due to fluctuations in the supply of energy from sustainable sources, such as sun and wind. For instance, the sun only shines during the day and not at night, and there is more and heavier wind than in summer. In order to be able to supply the consumer with the required amount of energy at any time of the day, it is therefore necessary to have a buffer. An example of a storage buffer is hydrogen, which is produced by electrolysis of water, using electricity from solar or wind energy. The process to make hydrogen already exists, and is commercially available. Hydrogen is, however, problematic in use: large-scale storage is not safe, and we do not have a distribution system suitable for hydrogen. The construction of such a system is very costly. This is why we propose converting hydrogen with CO2 into synthetic natural gas (methane, CH4) or syngas (CO). Methane is proven safe for large-scale storage, we already use it on a larger scale, and our current infrastructure does not need to be modified. Syngas can serve as starting material for the production of liquid hydrocarbons as fuel using the already commercially available Fischer-Tropsch process. We use sunlight directly as an energy source for this conversion of CO2 and hydrogen to synthetic natural gas and/or syngas, thus avoiding additional conversion steps (e.g. from sunlight to electricity, and only then to fuel) to maximize the energy efficiency of the process. We aim to deliver an integrated lab-scale demonstrator. For the conversion of hydrogen to CH4 and/or CO, we want to make use of CO2 as a carbon source. In this way, we reduce CO2 emissions. We use sunlight as an energy source for this chemical process. We aim to deliver an integrated lab-scale demonstrator that shows that this process is technically and economically feasible. Secondly, we deliver a lab-scale demonstrator for one fine chemical compound selected during the project. This shows that fine chemicals, e.g. intermediates for medicines, can be produced more safely and easily using the developed concept. At the end of LUMEN, these lab-scale demonstrator set-ups will be translated into an integral pilot-scale demonstrator, and subsequently an industrial process. This offers opportunities for involved regional companies in the value chain. Furthermore, the conversion of CO2 to chemicals will offer alternatives for the current production from oil, and will accelerate the reduction of CO2 emissions in the region.
Date:1 May 2019 →  31 Dec 2022
Keywords:energy storage buffer, renewable energy sources
Disciplines:Synthesis of materials
Project type:Collaboration project