Dynamic Modelling of A Rolling Piston Compressor Including A Packed-Bed Drying System

To produce an alternative fuel like Methanol from scratch, on a miniature scale- the reactants CO2 and H2O are sourced locally. Zero Emission Fuels B.V. (ZEF) does this by collecting carbon dioxide from the air, via carbon capture techniques and compressing it to high pressure of 55bars. As a consequence of humidity inside the captured CO2,...

System integration of a high pressure alkaline electrolyser

To anticipate for future demand of sustainable liquid fuels, Zero Emission Fuels B.V. develops a solar powered micro plant which produces methanol from water and carbon dioxide captured from outside air. An intermediate step in this process is the electrolysis of water to create hydrogen which reacts with carbon dioxide to methanol. This study...

Conceptual Design of a Novel Small-Scale CO2 Compressor: Based on Gas Bearing Technology

In conventional compressor technology, high pressure ratios are often achieved by multiple, successive compression stages. This is done to avoid high temperatures due to the adiabatic nature of most compression processes which deteriorates the working of oil lubrication. The aim of this work is to reduce a conventional four-stage system to only...

Design of a Carbon Dioxide Compression Train: For high pressures and low mass flows, using rolling piston compressors

To answer the need for renewable fuels, Zero Emission Fuels is designing a microplant to create methanol from carbon dioxide and water from the ambient air using only renewable energy from solar panels. For this microplant, gaseous carbon dioxide must be compressed from 1 to 50 [bar] with the low mass flow of 336.7 [g/h]. This thesis examines...

Characterization of a high pressure alkaline electrolyser with respect to product gas purity

Zero Emission Fuels B.V. (ZEF) is developing a microplant, which ultimately provides a pathway to produce a hydrocarbon in a sustainable manner. This microplant consists of several subsystems. One of which is an alkaline water electrolyser, in which water is split into oxygen and hydrogen under specific operating conditions.<br/>As a mixture of...

Pre-Processing of a CO₂ feedstream in a CCUS methanol microplant

When experimenting with the compression of a gas similar to the output of a CO2 Direct Air Captureunit using an off-the-shelf lubricated compressor, Zero Emission Fuels B.V.(ZEF) encountered severecondensation, damaging the compressor. This explorative study aims to identify the cause of thisproblem, create a concept solution, and test this...

The hermodynamic Stability Problem, from a Mathematical Optimisation Perspective

Flash calculations are used for the dynamic simulation of vapor-liquid phase equilibria (VLE) in many chemical processes. When used to predict the composition of mixtures in VLE, the repeated applicatino of these flash calculations, particularly in dynamic cases can cause small inaccuracies to cascade. One way to prevent this, is to have strong...

Controlled Removal of Trace O2 in an H2 Environment of a Small-scale Electrolyser

Power-to-gas (PtG) technology represents a promising route in providing long-term energy security and involves pairing volatile sources of renewable energy (solar and wind energy) with alkaline water electrolysis (AWE) to create a wide range of products based on intermediate hydrogen gas for end-users across various industries such as in fuels,...

How long will it last?: An assessment of the useful life of plastics for the encapsulation of an alkaline electrolyser

Alkaline water electrolysis will become increasingly important for supplying the world with sufficient renewable energy, and with raw material for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. Zero Emission Fuels B.V. (ZEF), a technology start-up based in the Netherlands, is developing a small scale alkaline electrolysis cell (AEC), which is...

Dynamic model and preliminary design of a small-scale renewable methanol system

Zero Emission Fuels B.V. develops a standalone System that produces renewable methanol from air and sunlight. In this thesis the steady-state model of this System is replaced with a Simulation Tool that can predict its behaviour for every minute of a year. The goal is to verify how technical design parameters influence methanol production and to...

Experimental Characterization of a Novel Small-Scale Natural Circulation Loop Methanol Synthesis Reactor

The present-day industrialized nations reached high standards of living using cheap fossil fuel energy. The high CO<sub style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: &quot;Lucida Grande&quot;, &quot;Lucida Sans Unicode&quot;, sans-serif;">2</sub> emissions as a result of burning these fuels over the years have started outpacing the natural carbon...