Direct biogas conversion to green H2 and carbon materials by scalable microwave heaTed catalytIc reacTor for soil Amendment and silicon carbide production

TITAN will develop and validate at TRL5 the direct conversion of biogas (CO2 containing rich-CH4 feedstock) into valuable carbon materials and a H2 rich stream thanks to MW Technology heated reactors. It will also consider further valorisation to power, chemicals and fuels.

TITAN has the potential to produce 0.6 Mt of green H2 in 2030 to almost 4 Mt per year from 2045 on, corresponding to the saving of 237 Mt CO2 by 2045.Major innovations are linked to:(1) the efficiency of a scaled-up MW heated fluidised catalytic reactor allowing high CH4 conversion in a single pass thanks due to direct catalyst heating (avoidance of heat transfer limitation) and the avoidance of energy intensive gas separation will make the whole process energy positive, produce H2 and/or power at competitive cost while sequestrating C leading to negative GHG emissions.(2) direct conversion of biogas by simultaneous CH4 cracking and CO2 dry reforming into H2 and solid C materials.

Higher H2 yield will be obtained by converting the produced CO into H2 with an additional WGS reactor allowing H2O splitting.Based on circular economy concepts, the valorisation of the C materials will be studied for two applications: 1/ soil amendment to enhance agriculture soil properties and 2/ production of SiC materials.

The long-term storage of the carbon species and their microbiological impact when released into soils will be studied.The scalability of the proposed MW heated reactor technology, together with a smart downstream process, will lead to low CAPEX that shall allow the deployment of small, delocalised biogas to power units as well as large biogas to H2 and/or chemicals/fuels units in Europe.

The best techno-economic solutions will be identified with respect to plant capacities and available infrastructure.

While the scope of the project will focus on the valorisation of biogas, the valorisation of methane-rich mixtures will also be studied for wider impact.