• power-to-liquid

The introduction of a big share of energy from renewable and intermittent sources has as a consequence an overload of the grid in peak hours. Chemical storages can reach high storage capacities and high discharge time, being able to absorb all excess electricity even in a high variable RES scenario and being able to cover large share of long term flexibility needs in the new electricity system. Among chemical storages, Power-to-X (PtX) technologies show high potentials in terms of capacity and flexibility. Oxygenated fuels (in particular OME 3-5) looks promising as they can be blended with Diesel and have benefic effects on overall emissions avoiding the usual trade-off between soot and NOx formation.
At Fraunhofer ISE a plant for OMEs production following methanol pathway is under research focus.
Water-free formaldehyde synthesis is the key step for an efficient OME production since water largely suppresses long chain OME synthesis, and it is hard to separate from the product mixture due to azeotrope formation.
An experimental investigation for gas-phase water-free formaldehyde synthesis over natrium carbonate catalyst through methanol dehydrogenation is presented in this work. The test-rig has been modified and put into operation and a preliminary reactor analysis has been carried out in order to find an optimum reactor setting and temperature profile. A test campaign has been performed to assess the system performances at different operative conditions, both in its transient and steady state behavior. The following parameters have been investigated: gas hourly space velocity, weight hourly space velocity, reaction temperature, carrier gas flow. The effect of catalyst usage and its mixing with active carbons has been analyzed.