Power-to-X for sustainable future

No, because we’re not starting out at Square One. Thanks to the experiences of our participants, we can expand existing networks and take advantage of existing areas of expertise. As a result, we don’t have to spend the first two years getting different groups to talk to one another. That’s very important, because it means our lead time was kept to a minimum. At Power-to-X we quickly created six very clearly structured research clusters. These clusters have an interdisciplinary structure, but they are always focused on a common goal through the bracket of a certain technology. That made it much easier for us to get started.

Mainly the interlinking of sectors that I mentioned before—in other words, the fact that we are bringing together very different industrial sectors against the background of the technologies we want to develop. These sectors range from energy generation to the chemical sector, the processing industry in the area of emerging chemical products, and the automotive sector. In addition, there’s a new dimension in play here: the use of renewable forms of energy as an input for the conversion of materials. We’re doing more than “only” producing methane in order to store energy. Or, to put it in other words, we’re harvesting renewable forms of energy! And we’re also doing this in complex chemical molecules for various value chains, not only in simple compounds for storing energy.

The first three clusters are examining how chemical base materials—for example, carbon monoxide and hydrogen—are produced from electrical energy. These “power molecules” are then the focus of the next three clusters, which are examining how to use them to create chemical products with a higher added value. From a chemist’s perspective, one could say that we’re first doing the electrolysis part, followed by the catalysis part.

They’ve been very intense. And harmony hasn’t always reigned. …But the debates are very constructive. For all of the projects, there’s a trio of sustainability issues: economy, ecology, AND social acceptance. For example, it’s helpful to jointly consider at an early stage what community participation models might look like in a decentralized chemical production network. Municipalities can also participate, just as they would in the case of a wind turbine. However, this is still only a vision of the future. However, we are continuing this debate in parallel to our technical research. The goal is participation. The term “acceptance” doesn’t really go far enough.

Well, there are some open questions. For example, there’s the question of whether we utilize “excess electricity” or build specific facilities such as wind turbines to supply the chemical production plants with energy. Another question is how high the product risk is for the decentralized production of chemicals. In a chemical park everything is safeguarded, but at a site somewhere out in the country it isn’t. We’re dealing here with the discrepancy between local environmental protection, on the one hand, and global climate protection, on the other.

Of course I’m absolutely thrilled by the dynamism that is now streaming into this field! But the project didn’t really come to us out of the blue. In order to get it, we had to do some work in the coordination group, together with Prof. Kurt Wagemann from Dechema and Prof. Rüdiger Eichel from the Jülich Research Center. …The chemical conversion of fossil raw materials has made wonderful things possible for us—lengthening life expectancy, feeding ever larger numbers of people, raising standards of living— but it has also had an impact on the environment, especially in terms of CO₂ emissions. We are now being given the opportunity to shrink our carbon footprint, while at the same time making better chemical products. That’s a wonderful thing.

I want us to take at least three technologies to the point where they can take, or have already taken, the step into real industrial production. Rheticus is already developing in the right direction by leaps and bounds.