In Europe, the test phase for the extraction of synthetic natural gas from the air has been successfully completed

By 2050, Europe expects to become the first climate neutral region. This means that the production of electricity and other expenses for heat, transport and the like should not be accompanied by emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And electricity alone is not enough for this, it is necessary to learn how to synthesize fuel from renewable sources.

Last summer we told about a pilot mobile plant of German design for the production of liquid synthetic fuel from ambient air (from carbon dioxide). This installation has become part of the pan-European STORE & GO project. Within the framework of the project in three countries of the European Union, carried out long-term experiments on the production of synthetic natural gas from the air. Just last week, at a conference at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the results of the experiment were summed up.

Demonstration plants for converting electricity to natural gas were deployed at sites in Falkenhagen (Germany), Solothurn (Switzerland) and Troy (Italy). All three pilot plants used different units to convert a mixture of water and carbon dioxide first into hydrogen and then into synthetic methane. This also tested the effectiveness of each of them. One plant used a microorganism-based reactor, another a new microstructure reactor, and a third KIT's scalable honeycomb reactor (probably this).

In each case, different sources of carbon dioxide were used, including direct capture of CO2 from the atmosphere by directly pumping ambient air through the plant. But in each case, the resulting methane was either fed directly into the city's gas distribution network or liquefied for use as fuel for transport or elsewhere. Given the huge capacity of the European gas transmission system, natural gas synthesis using renewable energy sources is recognized as an effective way to smooth out the peaks in the work of solar and wind farms.

In addition to field tests of fuel plants, a lot of experience has been gained in the distribution of synthetic natural gas. This prompted the creation of regulatory documents for the operation of such installations in different European countries. According to the developers, the natural gas synthesis system has proven its worth and can be recommended for mass implementation.

Source: 3dnews.ru