CO2 re-use technologies
Research line developed within the CEEP (Centre of Excellence on Clean Energy) project on the topics of low-CO2 energy production.
Date:
08 September 2021
Over the last few decades, the recent focus on climate change has led to the development of CO2 capture and storage (CCS) technologies capable of containing emissions of carbon dioxide - the main greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere. For carbon dioxide, which is extremely damaging to the planet's climate and therefore needs to be eliminated, the only option was permanent geological confinement, possibly in oil or gas fields close to depletion, in order to increase production.
The scientific community has only recently begun to consider CO2 no longer just as a problem, but as a resource. Carbon dioxide, in fact, can be used as a raw material, together with hydrogen produced from renewable sources, for the production of clean fuels (such as methanol, which has an enormously expanding market, and dimethylether, a potential substitute for LPG or diesel), chemicals and other materials. And while it is true, in the case of fuels, that their use in any case entails the emission of the CO2 they inherently contain, it is also true that they will in any case replace similar fuels produced from fossil sources, reducing the need for them.
In addition, the increasing spread of power generation plants from uncontrollable renewable sources, such as sun and wind, often makes excess power generation available. In this case, CO2 reutilisation technologies for fossil fuel production can be used as energy accumulators and stabilisers of the electricity grid. In fact, surplus electricity production from renewable sources could be used to produce hydrogen, which would feed conversion systems enabling the production of methanol and other fuels, to be put on the market or reused to meet electricity demand during peak periods.
For the CEEP project, a pilot plant was installed and tested primarily for the development and characterisation of catalysts for the process of converting CO2 into fuels, such as methanol and dimethylether. This infrastructure also includes a gasification bench section to allow experimental tests on the production of liquid or gaseous fuels from biomass and waste.
The core of the study consists in the synthesis and experimental characterisation of catalysts, with different chemical compositions and preparation methods, for the catalytic hydrogenation process of CO2 from which liquid or gaseous fuels are derived. The research activity, conducted in part in collaboration with leading research institutes such as the Department of Chemistry of the University of Cagliari and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (India), made it possible to assess the excellent performance of the tested catalysts, with significantly better results than other catalysts (commercial and non-commercial) designed for the same process.
One of the main achievements is a catalyst, entirely developed by Sotacarbo researchers by combining advanced materials and innovative methods, which presents surprising performance in terms of conversion efficiency and stability (even in the presence of oxygen) and which, above all, does not need to be pre-activated, unlike all commercially available catalysts today. This material is now the subject of an Italian patent, and an international licence application already published by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
In tandem with the study on catalysts, the construction (by 2021) of a new pilot plant designed to optimise the synthesis process is now scheduled.
In parallel, in collaboration with the University of Cagliari, the process of photoelectrochemical reduction of CO2 has been experimentally studied, in which the conversion of CO2 takes place not in a catalytic reactor but within an electrochemical cell that uses solar energy to sustain the process.
The research activities developed under this line are:
Attività sperimentale di conversione della CO2 in combustibili rinnovabili
Sviluppo di catalizzatori per la sintesi del metanolo e del dimetiletere
Sviluppo di processi elettrochimici per il riutilizzo della CO2
SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION
Below the papers published in international scientific journals produced as a result of the research activities of this line:
- Mauro Mureddu, Francesca Ferrara, Alberto Pettinau. Highly efficient CuO/ZnO/ZrO2@SBA-15 nanocatalysts for methanol synthesis from the catalytic hydrogenation of CO2. Applied Catalysis B: Environmental 2019; 258:117941.
- Laura Mais, Simonetta Palmas, Annalisa Vacca, Michele Mascia, Francesca Ferrara, Alberto Pettinau. Catalytic activity of Cu and Cu/Sn electrodes during CO2 reduction from aqueous media. Chemical Engineering Transactions 2019; 74.
Last update
09/12/2024, 17:39