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BIONICO newsletter - Issue 1 – 1st
half 2016 www.bionicoproject.eu
Biogas membrane reformer for decentralized hydrogen
production
Editorial
Welcome to this first BIONICO newsletter! After the Kick off meeting held on the 1st of
September 2015 in Milano, all the partners have started working together to make the
BIONICO concept reality. Thanks to the strong interconnection of BIONICO with previous
projects in the first 6 months it has already been possible to test catalysts, membranes and
supports in the lab scale reactor available at TUe. New catalysts, membranes and supports
are also under investigation to make these components tailor-made for the use with raw
Biogas at the temperatures required by BIONICO (up to 600°C). In these months we also
selected the site for the BIONICO plant: the first pilot scale catalytic membrane reactor
converting landfill Biogas in highly pure hydrogen will be built in the ENC plant of
Chamusca, Santarém, Portugal.
I hope you will find the info in this newsletter interesting. On our website
www.bionicoproject.eu you will find public presentations, all the public deliverables of the
project and many other interesting news. Stay tuned!
Newsletter – Issue 1 – 1st half 2016
March
2016
September March September March September
2017 2018
Industrial specifications
Reference case
First membrane & catalyst release
Newsletter n° 1
BIONICO newsletter - Issue 1 – 1st
half 2016 www.bionicoproject.eu
In this Issue:
Editorial .................................................................................................................................. 1
What is BIONICO? ...................................................................................................................... 2
The art of Breaking Membranes ............................................................................................... 5
BIONICO in progress ................................................................................................................. 6
Novel catalysts and supported membranes for Biogas Reforming process ........................ 7
Lab-scale reformer development .......................................................................................... 7
Industrial specifications and reference case layout ............................................................. 7
Life cycle assessment ............................................................................................................. 8
Highlights ................................................................................................................................. 11
What is BIONICO?
The concept
Biogas production in EU28 is expected to enjoy a remarkable growth in the next
decades, increasing the production up to 40 Mtoe in 2020. Roughly 10000 biogas plants in
agriculture, industry and waste water treatment are in operation in Europe, but the
European potential for biogas is still enormous. Biogas, which mainly consists of methane
and carbon dioxide, can be upgraded to biomethane by CO2 separation. Hydrogen
production from biogas is even more complex since it can have variable gas compositions
depending on primary matter sources. In addition, traditional conversion technologies are
energy and capital intensive as several process steps are involved. Consequently, there is a
need for shifting from traditional conversion technologies to a novel and flexible
technology.
The BIONICO project proposes an integral solution throughout the whole building value
chain. By using the novel intensified reactor, direct conversion of biogas can be achieved in
a single step producing and separating pure hydrogen in situ, which results in an increase
of the overall efficiency and strong decrease of volumes and auxiliary heat management
units. This will guarantee a higher efficiency in the conversion of biogas and a higher
penetration of this fuel into the market.
Project objectives
The BIONICO project will develop, build and demonstrate a novel reactor concept
integrating H2 production and separation in a single vessel in a biogas production plant.
The hydrogen production capacity will be of 100 kg/day. In particular, by integrating the
separation of hydrogen in situ during the reforming reaction, the methane in the biogas
will be converted to hydrogen at a much lower temperature compared with a conventional
reforming system. The adoption of a membrane reactor (MR) can improve the conversion
BIONICO newsletter - Issue 1 – 1st
half 2016 www.bionicoproject.eu
efficiency due to combining the biogas conversion to hydrogen and its separation in one
single reactor. MR has advantages in terms of costs because the equipment is reduced and
also because of the lower maximum temperature: cheaper materials can be adopted.
Additionally, the reactor will be integrated with an advanced control system such that the
flexibility of the system towards several parameters (temperature, pressure, flow rates,
etc.) is improved. Dedicated tests with different biogas compositions will be carried out to
show the flexibility of the process with respect to feedstock types.
P-1
H2Oreaction
air+H2Oreaction
CMPNG
Retentate
Exhaust
waterrec.
H2
EUNG
CMPair
AirATR
Sep
ATR-MR
Sep
Burner
HX-4HX-2
Airbrn
HX-0
HX-1
Vac.P.
Figure 1 Schematic BIONICO layout
Compared with any other MR projects in the past, BIONICO will demonstrate the MR at
a much larger scale, so that more than 100 membranes will be implemented in a fluidized
bed MR, making BIONICO’s concept a real demonstration unit, paving the way towards a
market exploitation of the reactor concept.
The main objectives of BIONICO project are:
Design, develop, demonstrate and optimize advanced cost-effective catalytic MR for
the production of approximately 100 kg/day of highly-purity hydrogen from biogas.
Develop a flexible system (including the advance control and BoP components)
capable of producing pure hydrogen from biogas of different compositions in a
unique reactor system.
Increase the overall efficiency of biogas-to-hydrogen conversion up to 72% by using
process intensification
Scale up the new H2 selective membranes and catalyst production
Demonstrate at real plant conditions of the BIONICO system at one of the biogas
production sites (e.g. Landfill site).
BIONICO newsletter - Issue 1 – 1st
half 2016 www.bionicoproject.eu
Partnership
In order to achieve maximum impacts
on the European industry, the BIONICO
consortium gathers 8 organisations from 7
countries including top level European
Research Institutes, Universities (3 RES) and
representative top industries (1 SME and 3
IND) in different sectors. The consortium
brings together multidisciplinary expertise
of catalysts synthesis, membranes
development, chemical and process
engineering development and construction
of turn-key solution in the energy sector
including operation and maintenance (i.e.
biogas recovery plants design, other energy
plants), modelling and simulation, LCA and
industrial risk study.
Project structure
The project scheduled work plan includes activities related to the whole system design,
construction and prototype demonstration. It is broken down in nine work packages
covering three years of work following the focus of the development of a flexible biogas
gas membrane reformer to provide pure hydrogen. BIONICO also takes advantage of the
previous FP7/JU projects carried out by the partners, thus the technical work packages are
limited and focused to the optimization and scale up production of the components for the
final membrane reformer.
BIONICO newsletter - Issue 1 – 1st
half 2016 www.bionicoproject.eu
The art of Breaking Membranes
by Niek de Nooijer
My name is Niek and I started my PhD 6 months ago at the TUE. My
PhD started together with the BIONICO project. The work of my
thesis will be strongly related with BIONICO since it will be about
hydrogen production from biogas in a fluidized bed membrane
reactor. The work in the first six months of the project have been a
lot of reading literature, getting familiar with all the techniques I
will be using in the labs and initial tests of catalyst and membranes.
The later one, the membranes, I heard quite a lot of story’s about before the start of my
PhD especially about the mechanical failure (“breaking the membrane”). The breaking
occurs when connecting the membrane to the reactor, this is the sealing procedure. Before
I explain my experience with breaking membranes it is important to know a bit about the
membrane and how to connect it to the reactor. The membranes used in BIONICO are
palladium based membranes on alumina support, this means a porous alumina tube is
coated on the outside with a thin palladium layer. After this the membrane looks like a
steel tube, shiny and silver. However the palladium layer can be easily damaged, for
example with a slight touch of a wrench tool. This is not yet breaking the membrane since
you can remove the damaged part ending up with a shorter one (I have a few very cute
little ones). I have to say that my wrench handling skills have improved significantly since
the start.
The metal looking tube now has two open ends, in order to selectively remove hydrogen
through the palladium layer the ends need to be closed. Here comes the sealing part into
play one end of the tube is closed with a dead end and the other connected to the
hydrogen outlet “the permeate side”. The sealing are metal connectors which have graphite
inside. The connector is placed in the bench vice and the membrane goes carefully inside.
BIONICO newsletter - Issue 1 – 1st
half 2016 www.bionicoproject.eu
The connecters are then closed, while closing the connectors compresses the graphite to
the palladium layer hereby sealing the membrane. The connector is closed with a torque
wrench indicating the force you apply. The higher the pressure the better the seal... But
there is only a maximum pressure that the alumina tube can handle before it decides to
separate into two pieces. If this happens there are a few possibilities I learned. The first
one is you handle the torque wrench with both hands, this means when the membrane
breaks one part of it is free to move, hence to fall. When the membrane falls on to the
ground either the membrane shatters into pieces or the palladium layer ends up looking
like you hit it with the wrench tool like a drummer, in both cases the membrane is broken.
The second option requires a bit more wrench handling skills. You support the membrane
with one hand and handle the wrench with the other. In this case if the membrane breaks
you are in theory able to catch it, this however gives no guarantee. There has been a
membrane that managed to jump into the air just enough to pass through my hand and
make its way to the ground. The last way for the membrane to break during sealing that I
have experienced I call the “quantum break” in this case the membrane is maybe or maybe
not broken and will stay maybe or maybe not together and you will only find out that it is
broken in some random moment in time, for example when showing the membrane to
your supervisor.
The score of the membranes VS PhD students has recently turned to more membranes
sealed than broken. In BIONICO we are still improving the supports, membrane and
sealing technique to a membrane which we can industrially apply in the pilot plant without
breaking.
BIONICO in progress
The latest news on the different WP activities are reported:
BIONICO newsletter - Issue 1 – 1st
half 2016 www.bionicoproject.eu
Novel catalysts and supported membranes for Biogas Reforming
process
PGM doped alumina catalysts have been tested under biogas reforming conditions for
both steam and dry reforming. Activity and stability tests are being conducted to improve
the performance of the BIONICO catalyst and will feed into a second generation of catalyst
to improve its resistance to coke formation. Fluidization tests will be used to assess the
suitability of the catalyst for the BIONICO project as well as supporting the reactor
development by AH.
The objective for the membranes is to have high H2 permeance and selectivity, and good
stability at high temperature (550-600 ºC) and enhanced sulphur resistance and durability
under conditions of biogas reforming MR in a fluidization regime. RKV is preparing porous
ceramic tubes of different diameters (e.g. 10 mm OD) and materials (e.g. Al2O3, ZrO2) for
their use as supports for thin Pd-based membranes. TECNALIA is preparing thin film
(<5 µm thick) Pd-Ag and Pd-Ag-Au membranes on top of the ceramic supports. The first
generation ceramic supported Pd-Ag and Pd-Ag-Au membranes presented low N2
permeances (< 1 x 10-9 mol m-2 s-1 Pa-1 at room temperature) and thus it is expected a high
ideal H2/N2 perm-selectivity for them at the operating temperature.
Lab-scale reformer development
Pd-Ag membranes have been tested at lab scale especially to identify the sealing
method to be used in BIONICO. The sealing selected based on graphite compression is
stable under the conditions of interest. Different membranes are now being sealed and
tested in different conditions to identify and assess the effect of different contaminants on
the membrane stability. In parallel, dry and wet reforming are being tested on the catalyst
supplied by JM.
Industrial specifications and reference case layout
AH has been working in the industrial specifications for a novel catalytic membrane
reactor to produce and separate hydrogen from biogas: conventional reforming processes
for hydrogen production were studied in the novel reactor concept highlighting steam
reforming and autothermal reforming as most promising technologies for BIONICO
project. Both cases have been deeply analysed in order to choose the best technology for
this application in terms of performance, costs, efficiency, etc.
Furthermore, the specification of the raw material composition and their characteristics
has been defined. They were a key aspect for the definition of the process; balance of plant
components and to ensure the correct operation of all installations on the plant. Following
are listed the preliminary process design basis defined:
Balance of plant components
Process parameters
Raw material specifications
Constraints of the technology
Hydrogen requirements (purity, pressure)
BIONICO newsletter - Issue 1 – 1st
half 2016 www.bionicoproject.eu
Preliminary mass and energy balance
Two reference cases (ATR + PSA and SMR + PSA) were defined by POLIMI in order to be
compared with the BIONICO performance. The reference cases were simulated in Aspen
Plus and their performance were assessed: SMR can reach an efficiency up to 59% while
ATR up to 54%.
Finally, potential market applications for this technology have been analysed and
described in terms of possible biogas producers and final consumers of the hydrogen
produced.
Life cycle assessment
Quantis has been working on goal and scope of the screening environmental life cycle
assessment of hydrogen production from biogas, identifying functional unit, system
boundaries and reference conventional scenarios, the framework of data collection
processes, the priority environmental indicators to be addressed, as well as checking
compliance with FC-HyGuide “Guidance document for performing life cycle assessment on
fuel cells and hydrogen technologies”. Together with partners, through data collection
sheets and interviews, life cycle inventory data collection processes have been initiated for
the investigated novel catalyst membrane reactor technology and existing conventional
alternatives (baseline). Some key initial feedbacks are listed as follows:
Each individual partner should be engaged to identify best strategies for data
collection effort.
Actual inventory data, such as inventory data of producing biogas and membrane,
are desirable; however, when they’re not available due to various constraints,
primary data will be collected as much as possible and ecoinvent database will be
used as proxy secondary data.
The same scale of hydrogen production capacity (i.e. 100 kg/day) should be adopted
and applied for all scenarios (the CMR technology and conventional reference
technology). The lab scale data is less of concern. And scenarios with scaled-up
capacity is upon further discussions.
For this screening study, modelling/ simulation data would be used. For refined
modelling, potential risk exists related to the usage of data collection of actual data
from pilot plant due to time constraints.
Data consistency would be consistently checked between techno-economic modelling
and environmental modelling.
BIONICO newsletter - Issue 1 – 1st
half 2016 www.bionicoproject.eu
BIONICO Kick-off meeting, September 2015, Milan, Italy
On September the 16th, the project coordinator POLIMI hosted the kick-off meeting at
their premises in Milan, Italy. In the meeting, the partners discussed the main goals and
S&T objectives of the project. Moreover the partners aligned the methodology and
associated work plan for effectively achieving the defined tasks. Besides, relevant
managerial aspects concerning coordination, communication and planning were addressed
and agreed between the participants.
BIONICO newsletter - Issue 1 – 1st
half 2016 www.bionicoproject.eu
BIONICO M6 meeting, March 2016, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
On SMarch the 31st, TUe hosted the second partnership biannual meeting at their offices
in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. It was the chance to update all the consortium on the
single WP progresses, to take important decisions for the project and to Visit TUE labs.
BIONICO newsletter - Issue 1 – 1st
half 2016 www.bionicoproject.eu
Highlights
BIONICO project will be disclosed at the 21st World
Hydrogen Energy Conference that will be held on June
13th - 16th at Zaragoza, Spain
Dissemination activities, publications and presentations:
BIONICO website
http://www.bionicoproject.eu
Upcoming events:
8 – 11 May 2016 ICH2P-2016, International Conference on Hydrogen Production,
Hangzhou, China
http://ich2p-16.csp.escience.cn/
15 – 19 May 2016 PERMEA 2016, Membrane Science and Technology Conference of
Visegrad Countries, Prague, Czech Republic
http://www.melpro.cz/
22 – 25 May 2016 10th CITEM2016, Ibero-American Congress on Membrane Science
and Technology, Mexico City, Mexico
http://www.smcytm.org.mx/congreso/index.html
6 – 9 June 2016 24th EUBCE, European Biomass Conference & Exhibition,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://www.eubce.com/home.html
13 – 17 June 2016 21th WHEC World Hydrogen Energy Conference, Zaragoza, Spain
http://www.whec2016.es/
13 – 14 June 2016 World Bioenergy Congress and Expo, Rome, Italy
http://bioenergy.conferenceseries.com/
15 – 17 June 2016 7th International Bioenergy Conference and Exhibition, Prince
George, Canada
http://www.bioenergyconference.org/
26 – 30 June 2016 ASME 2016 10th International Conference on Energy
Sustainability
ASME 2016 Power Conference
Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
https://www.asme.org/events/power-energy
6 – 7 July 2016 6th BIT, Annual World Congress of Bioenergy, Kintex, South Korea
BIONICO newsletter - Issue 1 – 1st
half 2016 www.bionicoproject.eu
http://www.bitcongress.com/wcbe2016/default.asp
10 – 13 July 2016 14th ICIM2016, International Conference on Inorganic
Membranes, Atlanata, USA
http://www.icimconference2016.com
12 – 14 July 2016 Bioenergy 2016, Washington DC, USA
http://www.ceref.org/bioenergy-2016
29 – 31 August 2016 2nd International Congress & Expo on Biofuels & Bioenergy, Sao
Paulo, Brazil
http://biofuels-bioenergy.conferenceseries.com/
21 – 22 September 2016
9th Biofuels International Conference 2016, Ghent, Belgium
http://biofuels-news.com/conference/
18 – 20 October 2016 9th EFIB, The European Forum for Industrial Biotechnology and
the Bioeconomy, Glasgow, Scotland
http://www.efibforum.com/
2 – 3 November 2016 16th Aachener Membran Kolloquium, Aachen, Germany
http://www.avt.rwth-aachen.de/AMK/
5 – 8 December 2016 9th IMSTEC, International Membrane Science and Technology
Conference, Adelaide Convention Centre, Australia
http://www.imstec.com.au/
29 – 30 December 2016 18th ICCB 2016, International Conference on Biofuels and
Bioenergy, Paris, France
https://www.waset.org/conference/2016/12/paris/ICBB/home
2 – 5 July 2017 7th WHTC World Hydrogen Technologies Convention, Prague,
Czech Republic
http://www.whtcprague2017.cz/
BIONICO newsletter - Issue 1 – 1st
half 2016 www.bionicoproject.eu
More information on BIONICO available at the project website:
http://www.bionicoproject.eu
Acknowledgements:
The BIONICO project has received funding from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint
Undertaking under grant agreement No 671459. This Joint Undertaking receives support
from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Italy,
Spain, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland.
Disclosure: The present document reflects only the author’s views, and neither the FCH-
JU nor the European Union is liable for any use that may be made of the information
contained therein.
BIONICO in figures:
8 partners (3 RES, 3 IND, 2 SME)
7 countries
3.4 M€ project
Start September 2015
Duration: 36 months
Key Milestones:
February 2017 – Validation of lab-scale reactor
December 2017 – Pilot scale prototype ready
February 2018 – System integrated at biogas
producer facility
September 2018 – Validation of the pilot plant
Project manager:
Dr. Marco Binotti
Politecnico di Milano
Technical manager:
Dr. Fausto Gallucci
TU/e
Dissemination manager:
Dr. Gioele Di Marcoberardino
Politecnico di Milano
Exploitation manager:
Dr. Noelia Ibáñez Lirio
Abengoa Idrogeno
www.bionicoproject.eu BIONICO brochure
Biogas membrane reformer for decentralized hydrogen
production
Summary: The BIONICO project will develop, build and demonstrate a
novel reactor concept integrating H2 production and
separation in a single vessel in a biogas production plant. The
hydrogen production capacity will be of 100 kg/day. By using
the novel intensified reactor, direct conversion of biogas to
pure hydrogen is achieved in a single step, which results in an
increase of the overall efficiency and strong decrease of
volumes and auxiliary heat management units.
A membrane assisted fluidized bed reactor for biogas
reforming will be designed and tested. Novel high flux
membranes supplied and novel catalysts will be assembled in
the reactor: particular attention will be devoted to the design
in order to avoid problems due to membrane vibration and
to improve the bubble breckage and thus reduce fuel slip
through the bubble phase. The control of the reformer will be
developed as integral part of the reactor, to achieve full
flexibility of the system. The experimental work carried out
on the reactor will also validate the models to be used for the
scale-up of the system. Finally, the final prototype of
membrane reactor will be designed, constructed and tested
in a facility where biogas is produced.
Contact: Dr. Marco Binotti
Politecnico di Milano
