The end of the project (but not the work on alternative fuel production....) is coming closer... Today our project and related results will be reviewed by our EC-CINEA project officer. We hope to have satisfied our funding agency!

​P. Pfeifer from KIT IMVT was interviewed on the KEROGREEN project, its outcomes and benefits. The record (in German) is available here.

Have a look at the research results from Tabea J. Stadler, Laila J. Bender and Peter Pfeifer (KIT IMVT) about their work done in the frame of KEROGREEN on "Dynamic Simulation of a Compact Sorption-Enhanced Water-Gas Shift Reactor" and published in October in Front. Chem. Eng., 2022.

Following the success of our final event in September P. Pfeifer (KIT IMVT) was interviewed about the project by the German Magazine "nd", which published then an article entitled "Klimaneutral fliegen – geht das?" ("Flying climate-neutral – is that possible?"). Have a look at it!

The project final event - which was held at KIT and accessible in parallel online - was a very good opportunity for all partners to show how much they achieved during the last 4,5 years in the frame of KEROGREEN! And of course, also the occasion to think about  future work considering still open challenges....

All the information and impressions from the event are available here!

Main achievements of KEROGREEN summarised in a synthetic way in our new Leaflet! All what our staekeholders should know about the KEROGREEN outcomes.

A. Goede presented the overall achievements of KEROGREEN to the EU-CINEA representatives as well as related "sister H2020 projects" in the frame of the 7^th edition of the CINEA workshop on Alternative Fuels & CCU.

Work from VITO and CERPOTECH on "Development of thin electrode layers by spray coating for solid oxide cells" is published in the latest edition of  J Coat Technol Res, 2022.

With the end of the project there are also enough results to be shared with relevant scientific community... and it is exactly what did S. Welzel (DIFFER) at the PSE 2022 in Erfurt with his talk entitled "Power-to-X: on the development of a KEROGREEN reactor module for sustainable CO production and the challenges in CO₂ plasmolysis and gas separation".

Have a look at the latest edition of our newsletter. It  provides a good overview of the current status of KEROGREEN and project final activities.

Enjoy reading!

Just before the summer break Europhysics News, the magazine of the European Physical Society, is publishing an article about KEROGREEN and more precisely on the topic  "CO₂ conversion via coupled plasma-electrolysis process", based on a contribution from A. Goede (DIFFER). The article is available here!

The really exciting phase of the project has begun.... the individual units of the KEROGREEN system have been finalised and tested by the partners at the individual sites, now they have all been transfered to KIT in Germany for integration in the "KEROGREEN Container" and final testing. 

Have a look at the transfer of the DIFFER module, the "final piece of the puzzle"!

It takes a good shape....

After six months the EU Funding Agency CINEA organised a new networking event dedicated to the H2020 Projects in the Alternative Fuels & CCU fields. Hence the EU pursues its goals of stimulating and supporting cross-fertilization and knowledge transfer. Project coordinator A. Goede was there to represent KEROGREEN. 

After more than 2 years, the KEROGREEN partners met again physically in Karlsruhe, Germany and discuss the work progress and project results.

The first day, organised by INERATEC, was dedicated to discussions concerning the exploitation of the results. On the second day, the official Consortium Executive Meeting was held at KIT-IMVT. It was the occasion for all partners to see for the first time the KEROGREEN container with first modules of the project system already integrated there. Time was also used for detailed planing of the final project event (to be held at KIT on 27.09.2022) and for the coordination of the last open tasks before the project end.

Finally partners were invited to visit the KIT Energy Lab 2.0.

It was a really fruitful meeting. And good to see each other again "in real"!

The results of the KEROGREEN work done by Tabea Stadler and others from KIT IMVT and ETI on the "Numerical simulation approach for a dynamically operated Sorption-Enhanced Water-Gas Shift Reactor" is now published in open access in the Journal Processes. Enjoy reading!

Francisco Vidal (KIT IMVT) was invited to present KEROGREEN and its results in the frame of a workshop organized on 18 May by the H2020 Project CONVERGE, TNO and IEA Bioenergy (Tasks 33 & 39). Beside his presentation entitled " KEROGREEN: Production of kerosene using carbon monoxide as energy carrier", several other lectures on either the CONVERGE project or focusing on advanced biofuels or renewable fuels were proposed by representatives from e.g. VTT, TNO Energy transition, BTG, TU Darmstadt, CERTH. In addition, participants had the opportunity to get insight into "The EU future for advanced biofuels" in a presentation given by Dr Maria Georgiadou from EU-CINEA. More details on the event and presentations are available here.

CINEA is intensifying its activity in the field of CCU and Alternative Fuels... It seems that a lot of EU projects are now working on these technologies and the Funding Agency push networking between them. A. Goede (DIFFER) represented as usual the KEROGREEN consortium at the virtual event.

In March 2022, A. Pandiyan et al. from DIFFER published in the Journal of CO₂ Utilization their results on their research on "CO₂ conversion via coupled plasma-electrolysis process", performed in the frame of KEROGREEN. What a great achievement, considering the hard work done on this very challenging part of the project!

More details on these activities in DIFFER's News item .

In February 2022, KEROGREEN, together with the Finish research projects E-Fuel and BECCU as well as the EERA Joint Programme Energy Storage (EERA JPES), organized an online winter school including a PhD day of the EERA JPES SP2, the Subprogram 2 on Energy Storage in Chemicals. The event gave young researchers (including some from KEROGREEN) the opportunity to present their research projects and results, but also to discuss with peers on future Power-to-X related technologies. With 75 registred participants from 9 European countries, the organisation committee is very satisfied and thankfull for the hugely interesting exchanges during the event. 

The session dedicated to PhD students from the EERA JPES SP2 on Energy Storage in Chemicals also gained a lot of success. The contest for the best PhD presentation was very hard. Finally Tabea Jasmin Stadler, from KIT-IMVT, received the best contribution award with her talk entitled „Syngas Production in the KEROGREEN Process Chain: Development of a compact Sorption Enhanced Water Gas Shift Reactor”.

More details on the event can be read here.

During the one-day event organised by the Belgian Association of Technicians from the Paint and Related Industries (ATIPIC)  and dedicated to Innovative Routes for Paint Formulations, Marijke Jacobs presented the work done by VITO for KEROGREEN on "Development of solid Electrolyte Cell by spraying". This is a perfect demonstration that specific achievements may find diverse applications!!

Only few months passed since EU-CINEA organised the last edition of its workshop dedicated to H2020 projects in the field of Carbon capture, utilisation and storage & alternative fuels (Sept. 2021). At the occasion of the 7^th edition on 28 January 2022, project coordinator Adelbert Goede (DIFFER) reported about the partners' current progress and the remaining open challenges they are facing. Also, it was a good opportunity to exchange ideas with representatives from newly funded EU-projects, what may open new horizons for the future ....

For the German partners of KEROGREEN, the new year starts successfully with the release of the research article "Influence of CO₂-Rich Syngas on the Selectivity to C10–C14 in a Coupled Fischer-Tropsch/Hydrocracking Process" published in the journal Chemie Ingenieur Technik.

Here it is.... the 3^rd edition of our project newsletter! Just before Christmas we wanted to share with you our latest news and encourage you to read more about KEROGREEN.

Wish you interesting reading!

One of the main tasks of partner KIT is the development of a Sorption Enhanced Water Gas Shift process to partly convert CO from plasma activation into synthesis gas – a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide – while simultaneously adsorbing produced CO₂ to return it to the plasma process. The contributing researchers at KIT-IMVT have developed a model to predict the process in the mixed bed of catalyst and adsorbent. Applying this model to the developed six-chamber microchannel pilot reactor, a sorption scheme was elaborated during simulating all six chambers in parallel and time-resolved manner to fully load the adsorbent with CO₂ while retaining all the produced carbon dioxide. The results of this study will be validated on experimental basis with the pilot reactor on demonstration scale inside the process container in early 2022.

On Monday 1^st November 2021, the first "KEROGREEN" CO₂ plasma was ignited in the plasma reactor developed at DIFFER. See more details on this key project achievement on DIFFER's website.

The information was also disseminated through the Dutch Research Council (NWO) newsletter!

In the frame of the 6^th edition of the CINEA workshop dedicated to H2020 projects in the field of Carbon capture, utilisation and storage & alternative fuels, our coordinator A. Goede (DIFFER) represented KEROGREEN and gave an overview of the latest achievements of the team. It was also a good opportunity to get into contact with new projects just starting, which can be of high interest also for our work. KEROGREEN's presentation can be found here.

In the frame of the online event, combining the 13^th European Congress of Chemical Engineering and the 6^th European Congress of Applied Biotechnology, Tabea Stadler (KIT IMVT) presented the group's results from KEROGREEN on sorption-enhanced water-gas shift reaction in a talk entitled " Sorption-enhanced water-gas shift reaction for synthesis gas production from pure CO: Dynamic model development for cyclic process operation". Again, the programme of this event was amazing and represents a great opportunity for braod dissemination of our project outcomes!

In southern Finnish town of Lappeenranta the future of energy is not just a question of convenience, but a necessity, with temperatures going as low as -12°C. In face of this a conference was held on exactly that topic, underpinned by a presentation of the KEROGREEN concept by project coordinator A. Goede (DIFFER). Link to the Conference page. 

At the 2021 edition of the European Coating Symposium (ECS) organised in Brussels in September, M. jacobs from VITO presented recent results obtained by her research group on solid electrolyte cell development by spray coatings. More information on the event and its programme are available here.

An article by A. van de Steeg & A. Goede (both from DIFFER) on the KEROGREEN concept and results on plasma development has been published in the Dutch magazine „NEVAC blad“, July 2021 edition  (Title: "CO₂ als grondstof voor synthetische kerosine en het belang van plasma voor hergebruik van CO₂" // "CO₂ as a raw material for synthetic kerosene and the importance of plasma for CO₂ re-use").

The paper „Resolving discharge parameters from atomic oxygen emission“ from P. Viegas et al. (DIFFER) presents a method to spatially resolve discharge parameters from experimental measurements of emission intensity and 1D numerical simulations including an O atom collisional-radiative model.

Tabea Stadler from KIT IMVT presented the latest results from the group on the KEROGREEN project in her poster "Sorption-enhanced water-gas shift reaction for synthesis gas production from pure CO: Investigation of sorption parameters and reactor configurations". Have a look at the impressive programme of the meeting!

In an effort to clear the fog of possibilities a paper by Ilker Tezsevin et al. was released on the use of HT-DFT simulations of 270 chemicals. The result narrowed on 31 candidates, that could be tested experimentally on their properties to function as oxygen permeable electrode and electrolyte materials at low temperatures.

The paper „High-Throughput Computational Screening of Cubic Perovskites for Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Cathodes“ can be accessed here.

In the 2021 edition of the CERAMICS meeting from the German Ceramic Society (DKG), VITO colleagues presented their recent results made in the frame of KEROGREEN on the development of solid electrolye cell by spray coating. The meeting was organised this year virtually by the German research institution FZ Jülich (Forschungszentrum Jülich). Link to the event webpage

In the frame of the online workshop organised by the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) Joint Programme "Advanced Materials and Processes for Energy Applications" (AMPEA), Stefan Welzel from DIFFER presented the KEROGREEN concept of plasmolysis and O₂ separation in his talk entitled "KEROGREEN: A plasma-based approach for CO₂ neutral fuel production".

More information on the event and all presentations are available here.

The annual meeting of the ProcessNet group took place virtually on 3-4 March. The focus of this year's edition was on topics like "power and heat generation", "use of hydrogen", "use of energy storage systems" as well as "systemic components and processes for sector coupling" .

KEROGREEN was represented at the meeting by T. Stadler, who gave a talk and present a poster on KIT's work on SWEGS.

Further information on the conference can be found here.

KEROGREEN, together with several EU-funded projects in the field of Carbon Capture and Conversion, were jointly organising an international workshop entitled "CO₂ capture and utilization", on 16th and 17th February 2021, at the University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Besides posters and presentations of the involved projects, external invitees from both industry and science gave lectures on the topic. 

The workshop was very well attended and feedbacks very good.

For more details follow this link

First results on the sorption-enhanced water-gas shift (SEWGS) system developed by T. Stadler and her colleagues from KIT-IMVT in the frame of KEROGREEN have been published in the Journal Energies: "Sorption-Enhanced Water-Gas Shift Reaction for Synthesis Gas Production from Pure CO: Investigation of Sorption Parameters and Reactor Configurations", Energies 2021, 14(2), 355. 

The 2020 edition of the EnergyCeram conference was organised online on 25-27 November. There M. Jacobs presented the latest progress and results from VITO concerning the SOC development which is part of the KEROGREEN project (Poster title: "Development of solid electrolyte cell by spray coating").

More information concerning the event are available here.

On the 20 November, T. Stadler from KIT-IMVT participated in the PhD symposium "Campus Energy" organised by the German Association "Energy and climate protection". With her Flash presentation on her work on the sorption-enhanced water-gas shift (SEWGS) system developed in the frame of KEROGREEN she convinced the jury and won the competition... Congratulations to her!!

 An article ("Innovative Synthesegas-Gewinnung zur Herstellung CO₂ -neutraler Flugtreibstoffe" // "Innovative synthetic gas generation for CO₂ -neutral aviation fuels production”) on the presented work has been published in the German newspaper ENERGIEWIRTSCHAFTLICHE TAGESFRAGEN in February 2021 (available for download here).

In its November edition, DIFFER's newsletter "Explore" is providing an update about the latest achievements within KEROGREEN. Not only the development of the plasma reactor but also the progress concerning development of the other modules (e.g. oxygen separation and CO purification modules, SE-WGS, FT and HC units) are presented. Here is the direct link to the News!

Have a look at the latest project results on plasma source science in the new Journal article  "Insight into contraction dynamics of microwave plasmas for CO2 conversion from plasma chemistry modelling" from P. Viegas et al. (DIFFER), in Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 2020, 29, 105014.

This month, the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) from the European Commission is publishing the booklet "Towards climate-neutral aviation", which presents 34 aviation research and innovation projects selected through competitive calls for proposals under the H2020 Transport and Energy Societal Challenges. One of these is KEROGREEN! The projects featured in the publication are all aiming to contribute to meet the ambitious European Green Deal’s objectives.

The Gaseous Electronics Conference (GEC), a special meeting of the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics (DAMOP), promotes ideas on the physical and chemical processes and dynamics taking place in partially ionized, collisional plasma and between the atoms, molecules, charged particles, photons, waves, and fields. The GEC has a long leadership history of presenting fundamental and basic science contributions on plasma sources, diagnostics, simulation, plasma chemistry, basic phenomena, atomic and molecular processes. In recent years, GEC has also been a leading venue for reporting on emergent areas of plasma-biotechnology, plasma medicine, multiphase plasmas, environmental applications and atmospheric-pressure plasma systems.

In the frame of the 73^rd virtual edition of the GEC, P Viegas presented the simulation results from KEROGREEN  in an oral presentation "Spatially resolving Discharge Parameters in Microwave Plasmas for CO₂ Conversion from Atomic Oxygen Emission".

Find more information on the event and scientific program.

Check out latest news and progress in our second project newsletter!

KEROGREEN has been running for 30 months with partners reporting substantial progress.

At DIFFER a 1 kW RF powered CO₂ plasma reactor provided the experimental data for the modelling efforts in this project. The first plasma in a 6 kW lab-reactor has been ignited and construction of the 6 kW RF container-sized plasmolysis module is ongoing. Following the splitting of CO₂ in the plasma reactor, oxygen is separated out from the CO/CO₂ gas stream by electrochemical means. After testing several different powder compositions produced by Cerpotech, two materials were selected as candidate material for the plasma electrode of the high temperature solid oxide cell, the basic component of the oxygen separator. The materials are deposited onto the electrolyte substrates and characterized by VITO. The (electro-)catalytic properties of the selected electrode materials are currently being assessed at DIFFER. Cell integration into a stack is progressing, and the stacks are expected soon. The layer deposition process is presently being scaled up at VITO so that in the next phase of work the stack can be coupled to the plasma reactor. HyGear is working on the engineering of the oxygen separation module.

The CO purification module, based on Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA), has been fully developed and assembled at HyGear. It is now being tested as a stand-alone purification system, in order to optimise performance and gather sufficient data to characterise its response to different operating conditions, feed compositions, flow rates, etc. The feedback from the test campaign will be used to update the model of this module, as well as that of the integrated KEROGREEN process. After the tests are finalized, the system will be shipped to KIT for integration.

At KIT, the design and construction of the Sorption-Enhanced Water-Gas Shift (SE-WGS) module employing advanced CO₂ hydrotalcite-based adsorbent has been completed. The experimental tests of the SE-WGS system in the laboratory are providing information required for the system operation. The innovative INERATEC evaporation cooled Fischer-Tropsch (FT) reactor based on a micro-channel cooling design has shown desired process intensification. The KIT Hydro-Cracking (HC) unit for optimizing the kerosene product yield shows the desired aviation specification. The HC part will be integrated with the FT module during autumn.

All the experimental work has been accompanied by theoretical modelling, including the plasma chemistry and the reactor model at DIFFER and the overall simulation of the process detailing the chemical processes in the SE-WGS, FT and HC units at INERATEC and KIT. Validation of the model by experiment and prediction of integrated process performance is currently in hand.

Similarly, KIT has built preliminary models concerning environmental and economic analyses of the KEROGREEN process and competing technologies. The upscaling of the KEROGREEN process models and the comparison with other technologies will be the next steps.

Fot the 5th time, INEA representatives organised a meeting bringing together  - at least virtually due to Corona Virus pandemic - H2020 contractors of projects dealing with CCUS and alternative fuels. Major aim of this event: networking and cross-fertilisation, developemnt of common activities to increase general public awareness. Project Coordinator Adelbert Goede and Richard van den Sanden (DIFFER) represented the KEROGREEN consortium in the meeting and presented the latest progress of the project.

How can we achieve sustainability in the aircraft industry?

In an interview done by the Dutch NEMO Science Museum (National Foundation for Science and Technology) in Amsterdam, which sets synthetic kerosene against currently employed Bio-kerosene, Adelbert Goede presented the KEROGREEN approach towards developement of sustainable and green aviation fuel, as well current progress and challenges. The interview is published in an article written (in Dutch) by the NEMO Chemistry editor Renée Moezelaar, and published in NEMO Kennislink. In the article entitled “Renewable kerosene still too scarce for impact”, the author especially points out the current barriers for the market entry (including high costs and related public acceptance) of both synthetic and bio-kerosene alternatives in the aircraft industry.

Since several months, the whole world is facing enormous problems related to the Coronavirus pandemic. Also most of the KEROGREEN partners had to stop part of their activities as some labs were closed and staff not able to work. However, even if we have to deal now with some delays, the consortium is still really optimistic concerning achievement of project final goals. Let's hope that we will come back to a "normal" life soon!

Ilker Tezsevin and his colleagues from DIFFER and the University of Eindhoven present their latest results on computational studies in a scientific paper entitled "Surface charging activated mechanism change: A computational study of O, CO, and CO₂ interactions on Ag electrodes" to be published in November 2020 in the Journal of Energy Chemistry. The online article is already available here.

After more than 3 months evaluation procedure the INEA representatives accepted the first project periodic report and also gave some advices for future work. Next evaluation will come very soon.... it's planned for end of 2020.

In their online article of 9 March 2020, the European NorthSea Airport Development Team (ENADT) presented several promissing approaches which should allow to achieve zero emissions and zero waste in the aviation sector, especially focussing on development of NOx emissions. Deployment of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) as proposed in KEROGREEN was cited as a very interesting alternative.

In the frame of the annual meeting of the DECHEMA energy process engineering group ProcessNet, Tabea Satdler and Francisco Vidal Vázquez (KIT-IMVT) presented their latest results related to their activities within KEROGREEN in two posters. Mostly German research participants but also few industrial representatives were visiting the event. More details on the event are available (in German) here.

The 2020 edition of the physics conference "Physics@Veldhoven" took place on 21 and 22 January. This annual conference is the largest of its kind in the Netherlands and includes topics from all areas of physics.

In the frame of the event, two researchers from DIFFER were presenting in poster sessions scientific outputs from KEROGREEN: A. Pandiyan: Electrochemical oxygen separation after CO₂ plasmolysis using solid oxide electrolysis cell; and P. Viegas: Numerical modelling of plasma chemistry in a microwave reactor for CO₂ conversion. More details can be found here.

13 December 2019, Eindhoven: DIFFER’s Open Day

Few days before Christmas, DIFFER organised his Open Day, which gave the Institute the opportunity to show invited guests latest achievements and running projects. On this occasion, Stefan Welzel (DIFFER) presented the KEROGREEN concept and discussed DIFFER's part of the work with interested participants. In total around 260 persons were present at the event, both from research and industry.

The NWO CHAINS (Chemistry as Innovative Science) is the annual Dutch chemistry conference, where chemists, from PhD students and postdocs to professors and R&D scientists, in science and industry come together. At the 2019 edition hold the 10^th December, I. Tezsevin presented his results from KEROGREEN in a poster session. More details about the conference are available here.

The first KEROGREEN review meeting took place on 5^th December 2019 in Brussels, Belgium. At the meeting,  the overall achievements and especially the progress made in each work package have been presented to the European Commission representatives which were very interested in the project advances.

The project review report is expected early 2020.

Several members of the group of MCM van den Sanden, DIFFER, published their recent results on plasma research in the "Plasma Sources Science and Technology" Journal, November 2019 issue. The full article is available here.

The first workshop organised in the frame of KEROGREEN was held at DIFFER, Eindhoven. More than 70 persons participated in the event, which focused on plasma catalytic processes and how these can be applied for production of renewable fuels and chemicals.

In total 9 presentations as well as 14 posters provided an overview of current appraoches and projects on this subject. All abstracts as well as information on speakers are available here.

More information on the event can be found here as well as in the event flyer.

The research on biosynthetic fuels at KIT was featured in an article published in the German newspaper “die Zeit” early November 2019, entitled “Kann man emissionsfrei fliegen?” (Can one fly emission-free?). The article is available here.

In a workshop dedicated to Hybrid Energy and Storage organised in November 2019 by the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), project coordinator Adelbert Goede (DIFFER) presented the KEROGREEN concept and approach to members of the Alliance and representatives of similar projects. More information on EERA are available here!

On 6 November 2019, DIFFER, TKI-BBE and NWO organised the Solar-to-Products (S2P) symposium focusing on convertion of solar energy to fuels and products. In the frame of this event, M. Tsampas (DIFFER) gave a lecture on catalytic and electrochemical processes for energy applications. In the poster session, I. Tezsevin (also from DIFFER) presented KEROGREEN results on high-throughput computational screening of CO₂ reduction and O transport materials. More details are available here.

P. Viegas and I. Tezsevin from DIFFER participated in the second edition of the annual Applied Computational Science (ACOS) symposium in Eindhoven, an annual event initiated in 2018 by the Dutch Research Council NWO, the Center for Computational Energy Research (CCER) and Shell. In a poster session they presented their results on scientific computing obtained in the frame of KEROGREEN.

24 October 2019, Karlsruhe: Shell is visiting KIT IMVT!

Representatives from the company Shell came to visit the labs of the Institute for Micro Process Engineering (IMVT) of KIT. Roland Dittmeyer, head of the IMVT, was leading the guided tour and presented among others the concepts and benefits of KEROGREEN to the guests.

Major aim of the expert meeting organised by Maastricht University was to lift off sustainable academic travelling. In his presentation Adelbert Goede (DIFFER), project coordinator, gave some inputs on technological perspectives on fossil free aviation, in particular by presenting the KEROGREEN concept. More information about the meeting are available here.

Peter Pfeifer was invited to present the activities of his research group and especially the concept and results of the KEROGREEN project to members of the Aviation Initiative for Renewable Energy in Germany e.V., aireg. The goal of aireg is to drive the research, production and usage of sustainable aviation fuel in Germany. The meeting represented a real opportunity for the project partner to promote the project and its outcomes in a targeted community of key players within the German aviation fuel industry. Check out this link for more information about the Aireg!

Early October 2019, Prof. Dittmeyer from KIT-IMVT participated in the PRAXISforum Power-to-X organised by the DECHEMA association and presented the KEROGREEN approach.

In the frame of the workshop organised by the EC-INEA in Brussels, project coordinator Adelbert Goede (DIFFER) presented the latest progress within the KEROGREEN project to representatives of the Agency as well as of similar European research projects. The event was a good opportunity for networking and exchange on the important issue of future fuels.

Richard Van de Sanden (DIFFER) was invited to participate in the 10^th edition of the international conference on plasma nanoscience iPlasmaNano-X 2019, organised in Porec, Croatia, in September 2019.  He gave a talk on “Recent trends in renewable energy driven chemistry for energy conversion and storage: plasma chemistry as the special case” to more than 60 scientists specialised in plasma nanoscience. The program as well as abstracts of all presentations can be found here. More information about the conference are available here.

“Which technology is needed for a carbon-free energy system in 2050?” This was the question raised by Richard Van de Sanden (DIFFER) in his talk at the Symposium of the KIVI Engineering Society, organised at DIFFER, Eindhoven, in September 2019. In that frame, he presented, among others, the KEROGREEN approach as an answer to that question. Details on the event can be found here.

Pedro Viegas (DIFFER) et al. published their latest results on vibrational kinetics in CO₂ plasma studies, part of the KEROGREEN work, in the 123^rd Volume, Issue 37 of the Journal of Physical Chemistry. The full article “Validation of the Fokker-Planck Approach to Vibrational Kinetics in CO₂ Plasma” is available here.

The first edition of the project's newsletter has been released in August 2019!

Have a look at it here.

KEROGREEN was well represented at the ICPIG 2019: Richard van de Sanden (DIFFER), as invited speaker, presented "Recent trends in renewable energy driven chemistry for energy conversion and storage: plasma chemistry as the special case". His colleague Pedro Viegas gave an oral presentation on „Self-consistent Fokker-Planck approach to CO₂ vibrational kinetics“. More Information about the 34^th ICPIG is available here.

Salvino Longo (Università degli Studi di Bari & CNR-Nanotec) was invited to give a talk at the 46^th European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics hold in Milan in July 2019. This annual conference, organized by the Plasma Physics Division of the European Physical Society (EPS), covers the wide field of plasma physics ranging from nuclear fusion to low temperature, astrophysical and laser plasmas. Salvino Longo presented results of joint work undertaken with DIFFER colleagues on vibrational kinetics of molecules in plasma. The abstract of the presentation “A diffusion approach to vibrational kinetics of molecules in plasma” is available here.

The conference was a great chance for the consortium to provide visibility on the KEROGREEN concept and present first results. Indeed, the project were represented 3 times!

In his oral presentation coordinator Adelbert GOEDE (DIFFER) presented the overall KEROGREEN concept and approach. His colleague Arunkumar Pandiyan (DIFFER) presented in his talk results on „electrochemical membrane reactor for oxygen separation after CO₂ plasmolysis”. In parallel Tabea Stadler (KIT) presented in a poster results on "advanced microreactors for the Water-Gas shift reaction in the jet fuel production from plasma splitting of CO₂". More Information about the 14^th ICCMR available here.

The motto of the conference on Statistical thermodynamics and chemical kinetics organised in June 2019 by the Italian Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and foundation Guido Donegani was “Far away from equilibrium”. Poalo Diomede (DIFFER) was invited to give a talk on Statistical Thermodynamics there and presented results from KEROGREEN on “Fokker-Planck equation in chemical kinetics”. The programme of the conference is available here.

Tabea Stadler (KIT) presented a poster with results obtained in the framework of KEROGREEN entitled „Advanced Microreactors for the Water Gas Shift Reaction in the Jet Fuel Production from Plasma Splitting of CO₂“. More details on 17^th ICCDU can be found here.

In the frame of the third workshop “Energy Lab 2.0 meets Neo-Carbon Energy” organised in June 2019 by LUT University in Lappeenranta, Finland, Adelbert Goede (DIFFER) and Roland Dittmeyer (KIT IMVT) gave a joint oral presentation on the KEROGREEN project and its results. More than 70 international researchers, company representatives and policy makers from the Energy sector attended the event dedicated to the topic “Applications and Challenges in Power to X Systems”.

P. Viegas and A.J. Wolf (DIFFER) presented the first KEROGREEN results on CO₂ plasma dissociation during the 24^th edition of the ISPC organised in June 2019. More details on the symposium here.

Roland Dittmeyer (KIT IMVT) was invited to participate in the first congress of the Brazilian Network for Biokerosene for Aviation, organised in Natal, Brazil, in June 2019. He took the opportunity to present KEROGREEN and to promote the project approach within the international research community. Around 180 specialists from all over the world participated in the congress.

Project coordinator Adelbert Goede (DIFFER) participated in the Research policy workshop “Paving the way towards clean energy and fuels in Europe” organised on 29 May 2019 in Lisbon in the framework of the 27^th EUBCE European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, where he presented KEROGREEN and discussed with EU policy makers and other selected project representatives.

This research policy workshop was organised by European Commission Directorate-General Research and Innovation in collaboration with the SET Plan - Action 8 EU Member States, the European Technology and Innovation Platform Bioenergy, the Renewable Heating and Cooling Platform and the European Energy Research Alliance Bioenergy. It focused on how to move forward the innovation chain in the EU for bioenergy, advanced biofuels and renewable fuels, contributing to the clean energy transformation in energy and transport, in line with the Strategic Development Goals and the EU Communication “Clean Planet for All”.

In the frame of a meeting with the German advisory council of the ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in Berlin, Roland Dittmeyer from KIT IMVT presented the Power-to-X approach and first encouraging results of KEROGREEN. The meeting was an important opportunity to have fruitful discussions on the future of energy sources and management and to promote research in the Power-to-X technologies.

One year after project start, project coordinator Adelbert Goede (DIFFER) presented the latest progress within KEROGREEN  to members of the Joint programme Energy Storage (JP ES) of the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) in the frame of their workshop organised in Barcelona end of April 2019. The EERA JP ES is the first pan-European programme to bring together all major fields of energy storage research. JP ES therefore represents a unique opportunity to align research and development activities in the field. For more information see here.

After the first project year all partners met again in Arnhem, Netherlands to discuss the current progress of the KEROGREEN project. A lot of good results could be achieved since project start, but important challenges remain open…. So a lot of work to continue. To conclude the meeting the host HyGear provided a very interesting company visit.

Francisco Vidal Vasquez (KIT IMVT) presented the project concept (poster contribution) at the 7^th Conference on carbon dioxide as feedstock for fuels, chemistry and polymers in Cologne on  21 march 2019.

The poster received a great success and Francisco had fruitful discussions with interested scientists.

More information on the Conference can be found here.

In the frame of a seminar organised by the PREMiERE Team of IPFN, University of Lisbon, Pedro Viegas (DIFFER) presented his work on KEROGREEN about “Modelling the vibrational kinetics of CO₂ through the Fokker-Planck approach”. It was a great opportunity for both Pedro Viegas and the PREMiERE Team to exchange on latest progress in the CO₂ plasma research applied to the energy sector. PREMiERE is a European wide research project funded by the Portuguese FCT working on CO₂ Plasmas as a friendly medium for renewable energy. See more here.

The symposium was organsied by DIFFER. At the meeting, Pedro Viegas (DIFFER) presented a poster about “Validation of the Fokker-Planck approach to CO₂ vibrational kinetics”. The program of the symposium is available here.

In the frame of  the 7^th edition of the International Conference on Advanced Plasma Technologies (ICAPT-7) in Hue, Vietnam, end of February 2019, Waldo Bongers (DIFFER) was invited to give a talk on “Plasma as a feasible option for renewable energy driven hybrid non-equilibrium chemistry”. More than 100 people attended to his presentation. The entire program of the conference can be accessed here.

In the frame of an event organised by the German Research institute Fraunhofer ISE in Freiburg, Germany, KIT IMVT, represented by Peter Pfeifer, presented in an oral presentation to about 80 participants the KEROGREEN approach.

In January 2019, Francisco Vidal Vázquez (KIT IMVT) participated in a Workshop organised by the German project PowerFuel in Erlangen, Germany, which was focusing on Modelling issues.  In active discussions, he presented the KEROGREEN approach on that topic. As part of the German "Energy Transition in Transport" funding initiative, the PowerFuel joint project is investigating the potential of decentralized production of synthetic fuels based on renewable energies.

In its December 2018 newsletter issue, the Dutch Research Council (NOW) published an article about KEROGREEN, based on an interview with project Coordinator Adelbert Goede (DIFFER). The Article “Clean Flying - Sustainable flying based on synthetic kerosene” can be found here.

The KIT spin-off INERATEC, partner in KEROGREEN, was awarded with the “Lothar-Späth-Award 2018“ which promotes outstanding innovative cooperation between industry and science in the federal states of Baden-Württemberg and Thuringia (https://www.lothar-spaeth-award.de).
The production of hydrocarbons normally requires extremely expensive, large-scale chemical plants. INERATEC managed to build chemical plants for the production of CO₂-neutral hydrocarbons which are so compact that they fit onto a container and can therefore be used flexibly anywhere.
More information can be found in the press release.

Pedro Viegas (DIFFER) presented a poster about “Self-consistent diffusion approach to CO₂ vibrational kinetics“. More details about the workshop are available here.

Project coordinator Adelbert Goede (DIFFER) participated in the “Experts workshop on Research and demonstration for Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) “ organised by EC representatives on 12 November 2018 in Brussels. He not only presented KEROGREEN but also had the opportunity to hear and discuss about the latest and ongoing developments in the SAF field.

This workshop has been arranged in order to seat together representatives and participants from past and current projects on SAF to:

- Discuss about how these projects can help to SAF deployment,

- Advice ongoing projects on the needs and ‘real life’ issues by the experts at the EU Advanced Biofuels Flightpath (where applicable),

- Help on transferring knowledge from ended project to current and future ones.

Project partner INERATEC (Karlsruhe, Germany) was awarded with the „Deutscher Gründerpreis 2018“. More about it here (in German).

An interview with Dr.-Ing. Tim Böltken, the managing director of INERATEC GmbH is available here (in German).

It was a great time in Mol, Belgium, where the KEROGREEN Consortium met again and presented the last progresses of the project. The partners discussed open technical issues to get forward with the KEROGREEN system development. In addition, they got the opportunity to visit the labs of partner VITO.

In the frame of the TRIOMICS Biofuels Conference organised by EC-DG RTD in Brussels, several European research projects were invited to present their work and discuss about the impact of EU R&D funding on biofuels in the past 20 years. Project Coordinator Adelbert Geode (DIFFER) was invited to the event and take part to the interesting discussions. It was also the opportunity to meet stakeholders, which may be important for KEROGREEN. For more information on TROMICS click here.

Project coordinator Adelbert Goede (DIFFER) published his lecture notes from the Course “Advances in Basic Energy Issues” hold during the Joint EPS-SIF International School on Energy 2017, in EPJ Web Conf., Volume 189, 2018. The full paper “CO₂-Neutral Fuels” is available here.

Download the project brochure we just released and discover more details about the project and its background.

The first KEROGREEN Consortium Executive meeting took place in Trondheim, Norway, on 30 & 31 July 2018. First steps in starting the work of different Work Packages and the progress of single tasks were compared and analyzed. First deliverables of the project could already be reported by then to the EC.

On 7 June 2018 INEA organised a clustering event in Brussels dedicated to H2020 projects in the field of Bio and alternative fuels. Main objective of the event was to allow cross-project connections for supporting synergies in the technical and scientific developments. Project coordinator Adelbert Goede (DIFFER) were there and represented the KEROGREEN consortium. He gave an overview presentation of the project and it goals. He also identified interesting projects for future collaborations.

Early June 2018, Roland Dittmeyer (KIT IMVT) presented the goals and details of the KEROGREEN concept to the German cooperation network UseCO₂ in the frame of a meeting they organised in Martinsried, Germany. This network is sharing similar aims as the KEROGREEN project, e.g. to encourage the transition towards a sustainable society and to support the independence of petroleum imports. Find more information about it here.

The 9^th International Freiberg Conference held in Berlin, Germany, in June 2018 gave Roland Dittmeyer (KIT IMVT) the opportunity to present some aspects of the KEROGREEN concept to around 180 stakeholders. His oral presentation on “Synthetic fuels from carbon dioxide and renewable electrical energy (e-fuels) enabled by compact microchannel reactors” focused on the work done by its Institute in the field of synthetic fuels. The complete program as well as a list of the speakers and topics covered during the event can be found here.

3-4 May 2018, Eindhoven: Workshop of the EERA Joint Programme Energy Storage

Only few weeks after project start, Coordinator Adelbert Goede (DIFFER) was invited to present the KEROGREEN project to members of the Joint programme Energy Storage (JP ES) of the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) in the frame of a workshop organised by the Unit “Renewable Energy Sources” in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The purpose of the event was to bring together all JP ES members in order to discuss and manage the JP activities. While the first day was dedicated to administrative issues, the second day gave the opportunity to have deep scientific discussions in each topic.

The two-day workshop organised by the EU Project COMSYN was aimed at exchanging experiences and to discuss future developments in the field of next generation biofuels. Roland Dittmeyer (KIT IMVT) presented there the KEROGREEN concept in a presentation entitled "e-Fuels from carbon dioxide enabled by novel process technologies".

Project coordinator Adelbert Goede (DIFFER) was invited to present the KEROGREEN project to EC and selected H2020 project representatives in the frame of a workshop organised by the Unit “Renewable Energy Sources” of the European Commission's General Directorate of Research and Innovation in Brussels the 10 and 11 April 2018.

The workshop aimed at identifying the progress made in research and innovation in the sector of Bioenergy, Advanced Biofuels and Renewable Fuels through support under the European Union's Framework Programme Horizon 2020.

Also gaps and needs for further funding, as well as measures of pushing innovation to the market were discussed, giving the project coordinators opportunities to share their point of view on this important aspect.

A collection of recommendations for policies based on project results and on the effectiveness of guiding innovative solutions to the market is planned as main outcome of the workshop.

The KEROGREEN kick-off meeting was held the 4 and 5 April 2018 at DIFFER in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. During this event, the main issues foreseen to be worked on in the different work packages were presented and discussed with project partners and the INEA representative.