EReTech Pilot 1 is onfield!

1 July 2024
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EReTech Pilot 1 is the first step to allow bio­gas con­ver­sion into CO2-neu­tral hydro­gen using the SYPOX reac­tor tech­nol­o­gy. The SYPOX reac­tor is an advance­ment of con­ven­tion­al fire-heat­ed steam reform­ers, where the ther­mal ener­gy is sup­plied not by fuel com­bus­tion but by inte­grat­ed elec­tri­cal­ly heat­ed ele­ments in direct con­tact with the react­ing gas mix­ture.

Test­ing the full-scale SYPOX bio­gas reform­ing reac­tor in real oper­at­ing con­di­tions is the main pur­pose of EReTech Pilot 1. With an input of bio­gas from agri­cul­tur­al waste, Pilot 1 pro­duces syn­the­sis gas, com­mon­ly known as “syn­gas”, a mix­ture com­posed main­ly of hydro­gen, car­bon monox­ide and car­bon diox­ide. With­in the dura­tion of the project, a sec­ond full-scale plant, the EReTech Pilot 2, will be installed and used to test the whole hydro­gen-pro­duc­ing process, includ­ing the syn­gas post-treat­ment to pure hydro­gen.

The Pilot 1 plant is housed in a twelve-meter-long ship­ping con­tain­er, with an elec­tri­cal input to the SYPOX reform­ing reac­tor of 250 kilo­watts.

Pilot 1 has been installed at the Bio­gas plant “Josef Kern­er Energiewirtschafts-GmbH” in Dollnstein, Ger­many. In April 2024, the Dollnstein city coun­cil unan­i­mous­ly approved the oper­a­tional run: this is set for 1500 hours over about two months. The test is sole­ly for research pur­pos­es, assess­ing con­trol­la­bil­i­ty and reg­u­la­tion for per­ma­nent oper­a­tion.

As the pro­duced syn­gas has not been used for oth­er pur­pos­es at the moment, it is com­plete­ly flared in a nine-meter-high enclosed chim­ney. There will be no noise or odour nui­sance dur­ing the test run, and the com­bus­tion process will take place entire­ly with­in the chim­ney.

The EReTech Pilot 1 oper­a­tions are led by TU Munich, with the tech­ni­cal com­po­nents pro­vid­ed by SYPOX, which is also the con­trac­tor. Bay­ern­gas han­dles the con­nec­tions, out­flows, and plant inte­gra­tion.

Pilot 2 is expect­ed to replace Pilot 1 and start oper­a­tion next year in June 2025, pro­duc­ing 400 kilo­grams of high-puri­ty hydro­gen per day, with an intend­ed oper­a­tional peri­od of 4000 hours.

Pilot 1 and Pilot 2 are designed and built fol­low­ing ongo­ing laws and stan­dards. Mean­while, a Life Cycle Assess­ment and a Tech­no-Eco­nom­ic Analy­sis for the indus­tri­al repli­ca­tion of the hydro­gen-pro­duc­ing plants are also under devel­op­ment.

Watch the inter­view with Gian­lu­ca Paulet­to CEO of SYPOX and Angela Lot­ti Research Chem­i­cal Engi­neer at UNIPD and Vis­it­ing Researcher at SYPOX at Pilot 1 in Dollnstein!


Project Partners





EReTech
Grant agree­ment ID: 101058608
Start date   1 June 2022
End date   30 Novem­ber 2025
EReTech
Elec­tri­fied Reac­tor Tech­nol­o­gy