CIDAUT participates in the Zeppelin green hydrogen project

CIDAUT is one of the research entities participating in the Zeppelin industrial research project, which aims to develop efficient and circular technological solutions for the production and storage of green hydrogen. The project aims to use innovation to reduce the current costs of renewable fuel production.

Led by the company Aqualia, Zeppelin has the participation of other actors in the hydrogen sector such as Redexis, Naturgy, Norvento, Perseo, Reganosa, Técnicas Reunidas and Repsol.

The general objectives of the project are to research new green hydrogen production technologies that are alternatives to electrolysis and that promote the circular economy through the recovery of waste and by-products from different sectors (agri-food, textiles, WWTPs, refineries, etc.).

Currently, 96% of the hydrogen produced in the world comes from fossil fuels and only 1% from renewable sources. Spain’s Hydrogen Roadmap calls for 25% of the hydrogen consumed by industry to be renewable by 2030, which will begin to power our trains, planes and vehicles. The Zeppelin project will contribute to achieving these Roadmap targets.

New materials and carriers for storing green hydrogen and modelling tools for the different technologies developed will also be evaluated. All of this, aligned with the objective of reducing the energy, economic and environmental costs associated with current hydrogen production and promoting safe, efficient and clean energy.

Within Activity 4: Research into H2 storage processes, led by Redexis, CIDAUT will collaborate in the research into alternative storage processes for green hydrogen in the form of ammonia. A comparative study with other forms of H2 storage will be carried out and a process for H2 storage in form of ammonia adapted to production and use needs will be dimensioned.

Zeppelin is funded by the Centre for Technological and Industrial Development (CDTI), through the CDTI Missions programme, aimed at financing large strategic business R&D initiatives that propose solutions to cross-cutting and strategic challenges for Spanish society and with the support of the Ministry of Science and Innovation. It has a budget of more than 7 million euros and the research will last until the end of 2024.The budget granted is financed by the European Union through the Next Generation Fund.

CIDAUT successfully completes the pilot tests on the use of ANG tanks in dual-fuel converted vehicle within ECOGATE project.

CIDAUT successfully completes the pilot tests on the use of ANG tanks in dual-fuel converted vehicle within ECOGATE project.

The overall objective of the ECO-GATE project (European COrridors for natural GAs Transport Efficiency) is to study efficiency improvement of conventional and renewable Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) market in the whole Atlantic Corridor (Portugal, Spain and France), the North Sea-Mediterranean Corridor (France) and the Spanish Mediterranean Corridor (Spain) through new technologies and innovative solutions for supply logistic services, cleaner fuels, refuelling infrastructure, vehicle and components manufacturers and operational processes.

ECO-GATE is run by a consortium of more than 20 companies from Spain, Portugal, France/ Germany.

CIDAUT innovation in the ECOGATE project is focused on the storage of natural gas on-board at lower pressure than Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), specifically in the adsorbed natural gas storage (ANG). CIDAUT has carried out the characterization of the loading and unloading processes of this type of adsorbed natural gas storage systems in an experimental facility and as a final step, the adsorbent natural gas (ANG) storage technology has been validated in a pilot test on a dual-diesel van.

This system stores more energy per unit volume at the same pressure as the storage of compressed natural gas (CNG). ANG allows the use of tanks that work at lower pressure (60 bar), with the advantages that this entails: greater flexibility in the design of the tank, greater formability, lower refuelling costs, the possibility of home refuelling and greater safety. With the installation of a pressure regulator, it has been possible to refuel these vehicles in conventional refuelling stations, limiting their filling pressure to 60 bar.

Despite the decrease in activity due to covid-19, since February 2020, the vehicle has travelled more than 25,000 km and consumed about 100kg of NGV through this ANG tank.

During this period, vehicle operation, refuelling and vehicle operating conditions were monitored to enable conclusions to be drawn from this in-vehicle research.

The main results of this pilot test showed that the type of transformation of the vehicle to dual-fuel, as well as the operating conditions (mainly urban environment) lead to not very high degrees of substitution of diesel for natural gas. However, the possibility of using this type of ANG tanks in gas vehicles has been corroborated, allowing them to be refuelled in conventional gas refuelling stations, although they are best filled at slow-charge, low-pressure supply points where the energy cost of refuelling is optimised.

“The sole responsibility of this publication lies with the author. The European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.”

More info about ECOGATE project: https://eco-gate.eu/

CIDAUT participates in the General Assembly ECOGATE project

On February 26th, the General Assembly of ECO-GATE Project was held in Naturgy facilities (Madrid), where all the consortium partners show the progress in the implementation of Natural Gas solutions in transport sector. 12 gas-refueling stations are already working and other 8 will be implemented in the following months. These are aimed to supply vehicular natural gas in the Atlantic and Mediterranean corridors of the road network of Spain, France, Germany and Portugal.

16 Innovative solutions in supply logistic services, cleaner fuel composition, refueling infrastructure, vehicle and components manufacturers and operational process have been successfully tested or implemented. CIDAUT innovation is focused on the storage of natural gas on-board at lower pressure than Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), specifically in the adsorbed natural gas storage (ANG). This system store more energy per unit volume at the same pressure as the storage of compressed natural gas (CNG). ANG allows the use of tanks that work at lower pressure (60 bar), with the advantages that this entails: greater flexibility in the design of the tank, greater formability, lower refueling costs, the possibility of home refueling and greater security.

Laboratory tests have been carried out and the innovation has been implemented in a dual-fuel diesel-natural gas van, as a pilot test within ECO-GATE project. Several tests in the real-scale pilot have been already done with satisfactory results.

“The sole responsibility of this publication lies with the author. The European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.”

More info about ECOGATE project: https://eco-gate.eu/

CIDAUT attends two important hydrogen events in Europe in the first months of 2020

The European Commission presented the European Green Deal on Wednesday (11 December 2019), outlining the main policy initiatives for reaching net-zero global warming emissions by 2050 and  Hydrogen will be a key instrument for meeting the Green Deal objectives.

In this sense, several events are taking place in Europe to promote and develop hydrogen-based technologies and CIDAUT has attended two of them.

Following the launch of the 2020 Call for proposals, the FCH JU held its annual Info Day in Brussels on 27 January 2020.

The Programme Officers introduced the various call topics on transport pillar, energy pillar and cross-cutting area. Rules for participation, call conditions and evaluation were presented.  In addition, it was given advice for a good approach according to the evaluators’ vision, as well as a review on communication and dissemination of results. It was finally made an introduction to Hydrogen Europe Industry and Research and some National Contact Points.

The event gathered almost 400 participants from across Europe, both on site and online. The deadline for submitting the proposals is 21 April 2020.

Following on hydrogen in Europe, CIDAUT has participated in the HyVolution event that took place on February 4-5 2020 at the Parc Floral de Paris. The two-day show provided an opportunity for meetings, discussions and business appointments, where all the players involved in the field of hydrogen were able to present their range of offers to the sector’s developers and decision-makers: products, services and applications for production, storage, distribution, gas-related technologies, etc. Some 120 exhibitors and brands were present at the show. The aim was to accelerate the deployment of hydrogen solutions by bringing together players from every potential market.

This year HyVolution 2020 hosted the third plenary session of the Hydrogen Valleys Partnership, attended by regional and European delegations. CIDAUT, as co-coordinator of the Working Group of Production, Transport and Storage participated in the plenary meeting and presented several pitches of project ideas, one of them developed by CIDAUT.

The plenary session was attended by FCHJU director Bart Biebuyck and Christian Weinberger of DG GROW who offered their vision on the future of innovation and financing in Hydrogen in Europe.

CIDAUT participates in the ECOS Congress presenting its progress in the ECOGATE project

ECOS 2019 is the 32nd International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems which has been taken place in Wroclaw (Poland) between the 23rd and the 28th of June.

Main topics discussed during the conference have been exergy as a process optimization, ORC, thermal recovery, fuel cells, energy storage, renewable energy, combustion, etc.

Under ECOGATE Project it has been presented a CIDAUT’s paper entitled “Natural gas accumulation technology by adsorption (ANG): set-up of a measurement installation for charge and discharge processes in natural gas vehicles”: This paper gathers a wide study about the storage natural gas (ANG) with a novel technology in this field: adsorbed natural gas (ANG), which enables storing more energy per unit volume at the same pressure as the storage of compressed natural gas (CNG). This innovation allows the use of tanks that work at lower pressure (60 bar) with the consequential advantages: greater flexibility in the design of the tank, greater formability, lower refueling costs, the possibility of home refueling and greater security.

CIDAUT has carried out the characterization of the charging and discharging processes of this type of adsorbed natural gas storage systems in an experimental facility also developed within the scope of the ECO-GATE project.

“The sole responsibility of this publication lies with the author. The European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.”

More info about ECOS conference in: http://www.s-conferences.eu/ecos2019

More info about ECOGATE project: https://eco-gate.eu/