SYNTHETIC FUELS

In the following, important projects and research institutes are presented that deal with the development and application of e-fuels, power-to-X technologies and renewable fuels. These projects and institutes play an important role in promoting sustainable mobility and contribute to reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), EMPA and ETH Zurich are researching and working on various projects to produce hydrogen and e-fuels from renewable energies and biomass.

E-fuels are an important component for sustainable mobility in the future. More and more associations and interest groups are campaigning for the development and use of e-fuels. Two of these organisations are SPIN (Swiss Power-to-X Collaborative Innovation Network) and the eFuel Alliance.

SPIN, a member of Biofuels Switzerland, is an association of companies, scientists and NGOs committed to the sustainable production and use of biofuels in Switzerland. They promote the development of biofuels that come from sustainable sources and have as little impact on the environment as possible.

The eFuel Alliance is a network of companies, research institutions and public authorities committed to the development and use of e-fuels. They work together to develop and optimise the technology and bring the production of e-fuels to a commercial level.

Synhelion, is a company that originated at ETH Zurich, which focuses on the development of thermochemical processes for the production of hydrogen and e-fuels from renewable energies. The company uses solar thermal technologies to capture heat energy from the sun and use it to produce hydrogen and e-fuels.

The company has developed a technology that enables hydrogen and e-fuels to be produced from a variety of biomass and waste sources, such as wood, straw and algae. Synhelion is working closely with industrial and academic partners to develop and optimise the technology and bring hydrogen and e-fuels production to commercial scale.

Together with a number of international companies, the sports car manufacturer Porsche and Siemens Energy are building an industrial plant in Punta Arenas in Chile for the production of virtually CO₂-neutral fuel. The groundbreaking ceremony for this pioneering project was held in September 2021 in the presence of Chilean Energy Minister Juan Carlos Jobet. In two stages, the capacity is to be expanded to around 55 million litres of e-fuels by 2024 and to around 550 million litres of e-fuels by 2026.

Spanish oil company Repsol and Saudi state-owned Saudi Aramco plan to jointly build a synthetic fuels plant in Bilbao, Spain. This will use Fischer-Tropsch technology from British technology company Johnson Matthey and BP.

The plant will produce road, marine and aviation fuels from 2024 with a production capacity of 2,100 tonnes per year and further expansions are planned. The plant will be supplied by a green hydrogen electrolysis plant with a capacity of 10 MW, which will also come on stream in 2024 and is being developed by Repsol, the Basque region's energy agency EVE and the Spanish gas company Enagas.

Sunfire is a company that specialises in the development and production of hydrogen and e-fuels from renewable energies. It has developed a technology that makes it possible to produce hydrogen and e-fuels from water and CO₂. This technology uses renewable energies such as solar energy and biomass to generate the necessary heat and electricity.

The company has also commissioned a hydrogen and e-fuels production facility based on Sunfire technology. It is working closely with industrial and academic partners to develop and optimise the technology and bring hydrogen and e-fuels production to commercial scale. Sunfire has also set up several projects in different countries and has partnerships with companies such as Audi, Bosch, Siemens and Total. In July 2022, Amazon also invested in Sunfire.

Japanese refiner Idemitsu is changing its business structure to focus mainly on sustainable fuels rather than oil-related products due to shrinking domestic demand for oil products.

Idemitsu will invest 290 billion yen (about 2.1 billion USD) in its "greenhouse gas neutral" businesses, such as sustainable aviation fuels, blue ammonia and hydrogen, carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), and synthetic fuels, from April 2023 to March 2026. This is more than double the investment in existing businesses such as heavy oil and petrochemicals.

This plan was announced on 16 November 2022 as part of Idemitsu's medium-term strategy.

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Aim of the idea "Power to X" CO₂ the long-term storage of large amounts of renewable electricity as liquid or gaseous energy carriers. These can be used as fuel, combustibles or to produce electricity. For this purpose, the first step is to produce hydrogen from surplus electricity from renewable energies via electrolysis. When synthetic fuels are burned, no additional CO₂ is produced, as is the case with conventional fuels.

The supposed loss of energy during electrolysis is compensated by far. Rather, there is talk of a gain. Today, wind turbines and photovoltaic systems deliver a lot of electricity - but unfortunately not always when it is needed. If too much renewable electricity is generated at an inopportune time, these expensive plants are shut down. It therefore makes sense to convert the surplus electrical energy into chemical energy in the form of hydrogen gas during water electrolysis.

By cleverly using surplus CO₂ from biogas plants, it is even possible to create a negative CO₂ balance. With this process, excess renewable energy produced can be used alternatively and stored in the long term. Another interesting aspect is the replacement of large quantities of imported fossil energies.

Synthetic fuels offer a number of advantages. One of the most important advantages is that they are CO₂-neutral when produced with renewable electricity. Because they are made from carbon dioxide and hydrogen, no additional CO₂ is produced when they are used.

Another advantage of synthetic fuels is that they are suitable for all types of combustion engines, including aeroplanes, ships and cars. This means that they can also utilise existing infrastructure.

Synthetic fuels can also be produced from various sources, such as biomass, hydrogen or synthetic methane, which offers flexibility in terms of energy supply.

They also have the advantage that they can reduce emissions of pollutants compared to fossil fuels. They produce less nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and soot particles and therefore help to improve air quality.

Another advantage of synthetic fuels is their storability and transportability, as they can be stored in liquid form and are therefore easier to transport than biofuels. Compared to biodiesel, the storage stability is significantly better.

It is also possible to utilise CO₂ as a source material, which opens up the possibility of CO₂ capture and storage and thus contributes to reducing CO₂ emissions.

However, there are also disadvantages, such as the high costs of production and dependence on renewable energies and the still limited availability of CO₂ capture technologies.