The Llavor project “Scale-up of catalyst fabrication for obtaining renewable natural gas” for their potential commercialization has come to an end.
During the project at IREC, the manufacturing process was optimized and adapted to industrial manufacturing processes. The performance of the product was successfully validated at a biogas methanation pilot-scale plant at a wastewater treatment plant (Sabadell, Spain) in collaboration with Naturgy. Recently, the catalyst has been delivered for its evaluation in a microstructured methanation unit of carbon dioxide from direct-air-capture at Energy Lab 2.0 (Karlsruhe, Germany), led by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and supported by INERATEC GmbH. Following the upscaling strategy, the new demonstration plant has a capacity 7-fold larger than the previous one.
The product is specially designed for renewable gas production by the combination of a CO2 emission sources and renewable hydrogen using microstructured reactors. The combination of advanced catalysts and compact reactors has several technical advantages over the traditional ones.
The Catalan Government’s Agency for Management and of University and Research Grants (Agència de Gestió i Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR)) has awarded this the project with a Llavor grant. The project is co-financed by the European Union through the European Regional Development fund (ERDF) and supported by the Secretary of Universities and Research of the Ministry for Business and Knowledge of the Government of Catalonia.