In June the first drops of eMethanol dripped out of the pilot plant that are set up at Aalborg University as a part of the project “Power2Met”. A project, Process Engineering has participated in through the last 2½ years and which helps to pave the way in the work of green conversion.
In collaboration with a number of Danish companies, Process Engineering has been at the forefront of the development of one of the technologies that is expected to play a major role in reducing CO2 emissions: the so-called Power2X technology.
Recently, you have hardly been able to open a newspaper or watch a news broadcast without hearing about this term. A term that stands for the conversion of electricity to gaseous or liquid fuel.
The first Danish plant outside the laboratory for production of eMethanol
Back in 2018, Process Engineering started the collaboration with the department of energy technology at Aalborg University, who, through analysis of projections of energy prices and the expansion of the biogas sector in Denmark, concluded that in the early 2020s it would be economically attractive to produce methanol from CO2 in biogas and hydrogen from eletrolysis of water. In this connection Process Engineering has been responsible for a number of exciting assignments.
“Process Engineering was responsible for conceptual design, basic design, detailed engineering and start-up supervision of the plant. We engineered a process producing methanol based on hydrogen produced by electrolysis and CO2 from biogas, which could be used as an additive to biodiesel. In connection with the determination of the operating conditions for the methanol synthesis, we determined the reaction kinetics on the basis of a literature study, and subsequently we prepared a simulation model. This formed the basis for the design and dimensioning of the process equipment.,” says Claus Christiansen, who is Director of Energy & Renewables Section in Process Engineering.
The plant is the first of its kind in Denmark and includes an eletrolysis plant that converts energy from renewable energy sources such as sun and wind into hydrogen – one of the so-called electrofuels, which are CO2-neutral fuels. A part of the plant was carried out for Aalborg University, while a large part was carried out with support from EUDP as a part of a consortium that received a double-digit million amount in support.
On October 6 the parties involved in the project held a webinar – this you can watch here https://youtu.be/6MTJngl6vPI
