A German startup has demonstrated what’s said to be the first facility for carbon-neutral e-methanol production from sewage.
Europe’s approximately 80,000 sewage treatment plants produce plenty of energy-rich material that could be considered ripe for innovative repurposing, with future marine fuels like e-methanol presenting one lucrative possibility.
Demonstrating this kind of production capability is the purpose of a project that began running at a sewage treatment plant in Mannheim in late March. It showcases an innovative, carbon-neutral process for the production of methanol, a versatile chemical with many uses.
The start-up behind the venture, ICODOS, was founded at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and has built the demonstration facility, working with several partners. It purifies the biogas produced by the plant and uses green hydrogen to convert it into the carbon-neutral fuel.
The demonstration plant uses a patented process to convert biogas extracted from wastewater into carbon-neutral methanol. In the first stage, the biogas originating in the sewage treatment plant is purified. The CO₂ it contains then reacts with green hydrogen to produce methanol.
“With our technology, we can extract a high-quality energy carrier from an existing source,” said Dr. Vidal Vazquez, a co-founder of ICODOS. “Sewage plants could produce several million tonnes of renewable methanol per year in Germany alone.”
With its compact and scalable design, the process is said to be ideal for distributed implementation. “Our current project shows the previously untapped potential of sewage plants as a core element of sustainable fuel production,” Vazquez said. ICODOS is already in discussions with other sewage plant operators about building further production systems.”
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