Sep 8 2010
Bayer Technology Services (BTS), Bayer MaterialScience, RWE and Siemens, in association with ten partners from universities and the scientific world, are joining forces to research new methods of utilizing carbon dioxide using renewable energies. With a share of over EUR 3 million, Bayer’s technology subsidiary is the biggest investor in the CO2RRECT (CO2-Reaction using Regenerative Energies and Catalytic Technologies) initiative.
BTS is managing the EUR 18 million research project, which is receiving EUR 11 million in grants over three years from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Both industry and academia are aiming principally at a sustainable and long-term application of the wildly fluctuating levels of electrical energy from renewable sources for CO2 utilization.
"Sustainable energy - and resource management today requires joint, cross-industry efforts. The utilization of CO2 as a carbon building block using mainly renewable energy makes a valuable contribution to reducing CO2 in the energy and chemical industries", said Dr. Helmut Mothes, head of Process Technology and Senior Vice President of Bayer Technology Services, at the launch of the CO2RRECT project. Dr. Mothes added that BTS has unique expertise in the fields of energy efficiency, green production technologies and the development of dynamic processes. He furthermore emphasized the importance of the renowned industrial and academic partners. As yet, there are no adequate catalysts or proofen electrolysis equipment known that are able to meet these requirements. Furthermore there is no experience on the influence of dynamics caused by fluctuating electricity generation on such complex networks.
Chemical production depends on, and is optimized for, a constant supply of energy. The energy generated by alternative sources, such as the sun and wind, is available only in an unbalanced way due to the nature of these elements. This gives rise to occasional energy surpluses, which are currently not used. Hence, the main objective of CO2RRECT is to make this surplus technically and economically useable. To this end, innovative technologies are being developed aiming at the application of this energy for utilizing CO2 as carbon building block for chemical intermediates, such as carbon monoxide or formic acid. This also creates opportunities to incorporate the climate gas CO2 in, for instance, plastics. Therefore CO2 can be used as a raw material for products and household items or for CDs. For this purpose new models of interaction between the energy and chemical industries are being developed.
The CO2 used in the project comes from RWE Power’s lignite power plant in Niederaussem (North Rhine-Westphalia). At its Coal Innovation Center there, the company operates a CO2 scrubber where the carbon dioxide is separated from the flue gases and a liquefaction facility which enables further CO2 transportation. In the CO2RRECT project, RWE is jointly responsible for the development of dynamic electrolysis processes which are supposed to ensure an intelligent and economically efficient use of energy by taking advantage of energy fluctuations or energy surpluses in the power network. The objective is to assess scaling of the entire process to demonstration scale (MW plant) and to initiate this process.
Siemens is contributing its expertise and technologies in the field of water electrolysis to the CO2RRECT project. Electrolysis technology with high dynamic capability is essential for smoothing out fluctuations in the power network and enabling the utilization of overcapacities. This is the only way to ensure the cost-effective hydrogen production via electrolysis necessary for the utilization of CO2 as a chemical building block. Further optimizations for higher efficiency and higher operating temperatures are also planned. A 100 kW modular construction unit is being built with respect to testing its suitability as dynamic network component within the project
Bayer MaterialScience strengthens the CO2RRECT consortium in terms of CO2 utilization and supports the project with its expertise as an operator of industrial-scale electrolyzers. As a potential end user, the economic and technical feasibility over the entire value-added chain to the point of the end products will also be tested.
The further consortium partners - INVITE, RWTH Aachen University, University of Rostock, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund, TU Dresden, University of Stuttgart, Max Planck Society, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and TU Darmstadt - are contributing their expertise and experience in the fields of catalysis, process engineering, reactor optimization and overall process evaluation.