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 attends two hydrogen events: the World hydrogen congress and Green Gas Mobility event

The World Hydrogen Congress took place online from 22-24 September and CIDAUT could attend it thanks to the collaboration of AeH2. The World Hydrogen Congress is the annual meeting place for senior decision-makers right across the hydrogen production and distribution value chain. An outstanding executive line up augmented by strong association support from both the blue and green hydrogen markets is leading to what promises to be a unique event for all hydrogen executives.

The congress lasted for three days with presentations and debates from the main stakeholders in the hydrogen sector through an innovative platform of thought-leaders, exchanges and debates between key hydrogen stakeholders, technology & science providers and world-leading industry views.

Continuing with hydrogen-related events, CIDAUT, as a member of GASNAM (an association that promotes the use of natural gas, hydrogen and renewable gas in mobility, both land and sea, in the Iberian Peninsula), attended the annual meeting on gas mobility that this association organizes.

This year, under a 100% virtual format, the Green Gas Mobility Online Event has had more than 50 conferences, B2B meetings, and a large virtual exhibition. For three days, from October 22 to 24, the benefits that the use of carbon neutral gases such as biomethane, synthetic gas or hydrogen brings to mobility have been analyzed.

Dissemination activities on VULKANO H2020 project

Two new different diffusion actions have been carried out within VULKANO H2020 Project.

The first one was the assistance to the 9th European Combustion Meeting between 14th and 18th of April in Lisbon (Portugal). It was presented the poster entitled: “Natural Gas replacement by syngas in Resource Energy Intensive Industries (REII) burners: numerical CFD evaluation”. This poster gathered the theoretical study for the natural gas substitution by syngas as well as the burner modifications required to achieve the VULKANO objective of co-firing syngas from 10% to 40% of substitution. More than 180 posters in combustion topics were presented by 120 different authors speaking about topics such as: laminar flames, turbulent flames, reaction kinetics, gas turbines, etc.

The second one was the assistance to the 11th Mediterranean Combustion Symposium from 16th to 20th of June in Tenerife, Spain. There, the last part of VULKANO progress was presented in the paper entitled “CFD approach in natural gas hybrid burners adapted for syngas combustion in REII”. This paper goes one step further in the design of new hybrid burners to achieve 100% of natural gas substitution by renewable gases such as process-off-gases and bio-syngases. Both works have been carried out in close collaboration with the Institute of Power Engineering of Warsaw (Poland).

VULKANO project continues with the III General Assembly Meeting

The third General Assembly Meeting of VULKANO project took place in Warsaw on 4-5th July 2018 in presence of the Project Technical Advisor of the European Commission. The meeting gathered more than 30 members of 11 companies located in 6 different countries, in order to review the general status of the project after the first twenty four months of execution.

The project has satisfactorily achieved its objectives throughout this time, obtaining useful results:

  • Operating conditions of the two demo site furnaces (steel and ceramic sector) and the requirements from the new technology solutions to be implemented at the furnace have been defined.
  • Development of Phase Change Materials (PCM) high temperature (up to 900ºC). After the simulations and the laboratory tests, the production of new PCM has started as well as it pre-implementation in ceramic furnace.
  • Development of new refractories with the use of byproducts for the production of innovative materials. For steel furnace, materials based on alumina are used, while based on zirconia materials have been employed for the ceramic furnace.
  • Feasibility of the natural gas substitution by the different syngas sources and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of syngas/natural gas mixtures with adapted co-firing burners. Two different burners have been developed: dedicated burner for 100% of syngas combustion and hybrid burner for 0-100% of syngas / natural gas combustion.
  • Optimization of the furnace monitoring and control system through metaheuristics algorithms and implementation. Steel case: automatization of gasifier&co-firing system. Ceramic case: control of PCM system.
  • Presentation of a flexible holistic in-house predictive tool prioritizing the critical parameters for each sector with a video explicative.
  • Start the construction of the replica furnace.
  • Updated market analysis presentation.

With the results of the assessment, IEn as Task leader on WP5.2, 5.3 and 5.4, presented the co-firing CFD simulations, jointly undertaken by IEn and CIDAUT for the unmodified burners. It has been designed, simulated and experimentally tested two new burners: a hybrid one to operate between 0 to 100% of syngas substitution and a dedicated one to operate at 100% with syngas.

Furthermore, VULKANO project partners have already generated seven scientific publications and with an estimated number of 13 to 15 during 2019. CIDAUT has already presented one paper in ECOS Conference in Guimaraes entitled “Application of the CFD simulation to the evaluation of natural gas replacement by syngas in burners of the ceramic sector”.

More info: http://www.vulkano-h2020.eu/

Keywords: VULKANO, CFD, co-firing, syngas, furnaces

 

CIDAUT presents VULKANO in ECOS2018

ECOS 2018 is the 31st International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems which has been taken place in Guimarães between the 18th and the 21st 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 VULKANO Project CIDAUT’s paper entitled “Application of the CFD simulation to the evaluation of natural gas replacement by syngas in burners of the ceramic sector” has been presented.This paper gathers a wide evaluation of the alternatives in the reduction of fossil fuel consumption, such as natural gas, promoting its substitution by an alternative fuel (Co-firing). A revision of the types of syngas with potential for use has been carried out, as well as the evaluation of the physical properties of the mixtures from the combustion operation point of view. The feasibility study has taken into consideration parameters such as the low heat value, the Woobe index, adiabatic flame temperature, air preheating temperature, total flue flow and laminar flame velocity. The modifications for SG co-firing have been evaluated using CFD simulations to establish the proper design of the mix zone to ensure the mixture between the air, syngas and natural gas. Moreover, despite the initial objective was to replace 40% of natural gas energy by syngas in an industrial ceramic furnace, new dedicated burners for 100% of syngas substitution have been designed and simulated.

The Institute of Power Engineering (IEn), as partner of CIDAUT in VULKANO, also presented a paper entitled “CFD analysis of natural gas substitution by syngas in industrial furnaces” which evaluated the integration of new burners in the whole furnace system and simulating the real heating process in steel sector.

Furthermore, the VALORCOMP project partners have also been involved attending to different technical presentations in topics related with biomass, energy use and combustion, gasification, reaction engineering and CO2 mitigation.

More info about the conference in: http://www.ecos2018.org/

More info about VULKANO project: http://www.vulkano-h2020.eu/

Keywords: VULKANO, ECOS2018, CFD, Burner, VALORCOMP