Synthesis of higher hydrocarbon fuels from renewable power (SYNFUELS)

Solution to the renewable transportation fuel problem is important in the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. Personal transportation will most likely be carried out by electric battery vehicles, but higher hydrocarbon fuels will still be in great demand in future in maritime and aviation industries. Hydrocarbon fuels can be produced from carbon dioxide with existing Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology when FT is combined with reverse water-gas-shift (RWGS) process. This process is however expensive, energy-inefficient, and it suffers from poor selectivity towards the target products. To improve this situation, we propose a research project where production of hydrocarbon fuels is studied by catalyst development, process synthesis, process modelling, optimization, techno-economic analysis, and life cycle assessment.

LUT has great facilities for this research work. Our recently established P2X laboratory has all the necessary resources to conduct catalyst testing. We have a fully automated micromeritics FR-200 fixed bed reactor to conduct experiments. We also have and Agilent xx 2D gas chromatograph and MS to analyze liquid and gas phase samples, especially in the analysis of complicated higher alkanes and alkenes.

We are looking for the European partners for this project. Possible partners could be for example specialized in catalyst development and characterization, and in process development and piloting.