INERATEC secures state-of-the-art catalysts from Sasol for the production of sustainable e-fuels
INERATEC and Sasol have signed a five-year contract for the supply of Fischer-Tropsch catalysts. INERATEC will use Sasol's state-of-the-art catalysts for the production of sustainable e-fuels, e.g. for aviation.
The catalysts will be used, among others, in the first large-scale industrial Power-to-Liquid (PtL) plant that INERATEC is currently building in Frankfurt, Germany, which is scheduled to go into operation in 2024. The PtL plant will produce e-fuels from CO2 and green hydrogen. INERATEC plans to produce up to 2,500 tons of e-fuels per year in this pioneering project. These will be processed into sustainable synthetic kerosene (sustainable aviation fuel). As a substitute for conventional kerosene, it will make a significant contribution to improving the environmental footprint of aviation.
“Our aim is to supply our CO2-neutral e-fuels in particular to those sectors that will continue to rely on liquid fuels and chemical molecules in the future, such as aviation, shipping, heavy haulage and the chemical industry. These currently come almost exclusively from fossil sources”
Sasol's catalysts influence the nature and speed of the Fischer-Tropsch reaction in the PtL process, thereby increasing the efficiency of the chemical conversion process. This improves process yield and significantly increases fuel production for the same resource input. In short, with the best and most advanced catalysts and the most efficient chemical reactors, less green hydrogen and green energy is needed for fuel synthesis. With this supply agreement, INERATEC has secured Sasol's latest generation of catalysts, which are considered the most efficient on the market and already enable high kerosene yields.
"Our aim is to supply our CO2-neutral e-fuels in particular to those sectors that will continue to rely on liquid fuels and chemical molecules in the future, such as aviation, shipping, heavy haulage and the chemical industry. These currently come almost exclusively from fossil sources," says Dr Tim Böltken, CEO of INERATEC. "In order to replace these in a sustainable way, the expansion of our production capacities is key. Productivity plays an important role here. The use of Sasol's catalysts in INERATEC's load-flexible PtL plants creates the highest production efficiencies on the market."
Partnership with vision: joint research project CARE-O-SENE
Sasol and INERATEC have a long-standing partnership. "Our two companies have been fully collaborating since 2015. We are united by the vision of shaping a better, more sustainable future through innovation," says Dr Dirk Schär, Technical Manager Marketing and Sales Catalysts at Sasol and co-leader of the international research project CARE-O-SENE. "Our joint work in the CARE-O-SENE project underlines this.”
The project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with €30 million, aims to further improve existing Fischer-Tropsch catalysts and develop completely new concepts to make the production of sustainable paraffin on an industrial scale more economical. The research consortium combines the industrial partners Sasol and INERATEC with highly innovative research institutes from Germany and South Africa. These include the Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy (HZB), the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems (IKTS), the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the University of Cape Town (UCT).
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