The first research on three-phase CO-methanation in slurry bubble column reactors (SBCRs) was reported by Hammer (29) in the 1960s. (3,4) Furthermore, recent developments focus on the increase of liquefied natural gas as fuel for mobile applications, which is also an attractive utilization path for synthetic methane with a low carbon footprint. CH 4 offers the benefit of an excellent storage, distribution, and utilization infrastructure based on the omnipresent natural gas grid. Therefore, the conversion of regenerative H 2 with a suitable carbon source such as carbon dioxide (CO 2) via catalytic methanation to the established chemical energy carrier methane (CH 4) is an attractive alternative for decarbonization.
Furthermore, there are many applications (e.g., all products from organic chemistry) that require carbon in conjunction with H 2 and which cannot be served by pure H 2. At the moment, a nationwide H 2 infrastructure is not available in Germany, and it has to be established in the next decades to facilitate such concepts. Therein, as a first step, hydrogen (H 2) is produced via water electrolysis and can be used directly as a chemical energy carrier if the necessary infrastructures and applications are at hand. As the predicted robustness of the SBCR-concept toward a dynamic operation with fast load changes was demonstrated successfully, it offers an attractive alternative to the established fixed-bed methanation technologies with their inherent limitations on dynamic operability.Ī promising way of storing renewable energies is the power-to-gas-process. Additionally, due to the increased reactor dimensions compared to laboratory equipment, it was now possible to observe a thermal response of the SBCR under conditions of rapid gas load changes characteristic of envisaged power-to-gas applications with volatile renewable electricity. As predicted, high H 2/CO 2 ratios increase CO 2 conversion, but excess H 2 apparently promotes decomposition of the liquid phase (dibenzyltoluene) used in the bubble column reactor. Steady-state results from laboratory-scale studies (<1 kW methane output) published previously were confirmed qualitatively at the pilot plant eliminating wall effects unavoidable in small-scale reactors.
First experimental data on the steady-state and dynamic operation of catalytic CO 2 methanation are presented.
The plant has a nominal load of a 100 kW methane output (lower calorific value) with a reactor diameter of 260 mm and a reactor length of 2500 mm. As a part of various research projects, a methanation pilot plant with a slurry bubble column reactor (SBCR) was commissioned and operated.
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