High performance catalytic materials for e-fuels manufacturing

Aiming at overcoming the limitations that currently prevent the large-scale development of green-hydrogen based technologies; new strategies for the chemical accumulation of hydrogen in the form of clean fuels through renewable sources transformation (e-fuels) are currently under study. Moreover, several innovative e-fuel manufacturing processes offers the extra-advantage of the valorisation of carbon dioxide in the production cycle. Therefore, the goal of this research is the study of high-performance catalytic materials to be used in the synthesis of e-fuels for sustainable mobility through green hydrogen processes and vegetable oil derivatives. The process involves a network of reactions, that occur consecutively and/or in parallel, in which hydrogen is used at different reaction stages. Each reaction stage may be differently promoted on the catalyst surface, leading to a different pathway of the whole process and a different product distribution. In order to shed light on the reaction mechanism of e-fuel synthesis process and to find out relationships between the activity of the catalyst and its chemical-physical properties, the structure of the materials has been studied by the use of several instrumental techniques such as XRD, TEM, SEM, XRF, XPS, TPR, BET. The catalytic tests were carried out in a laboratory scale micro-plant, performing the reaction process continuously, at 21 bar of total pressure and varying the reaction temperature from 200°C to 350°C. The highest activity in the e-fuel production was achieved with nickel-molybdenum based catalysts, reporting a productivity suitable for the industrial purpose.