e-Refinery

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e-Refinery at TU Delft develops electrochemical conversion technology for the sustainable production of chemicals and fuels

The energy transition has far-stretching implications for chemical companies. The Delft e-Refinery institute brings researchers and industrial partners together in order to develop the required technologies and human capital. Researchers in the e-Refinery initiative focus their research on the electrochemical conversion of sustainable electricity, water and air into fuels and chemical building blocks, from the molecular scale to large-scale system integration. Implementing e-Refinery will serve three important challenges that the society is facing: CO₂ neutral fuels, seasonal energy storage and a defossilized chemical industry.

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What we do at e-Refinery

News

3mE wins both second and fourth place in Best Tech-idea 2022

3mE researchers won second and fourth place in the Best Tech-idea 2022 competition run by Dutch science magazine, ‘KIJK’. Second place was awarded to Willem Haverkort for his work on hydrogen-production using membraneless electrolysis and fourth place goes to Farbod Alijani for his research on the use of graphene in detecting antibiotic resistant bacteria. More efficient hydrogen production Hydrogen-production by Electrolysis without using a membrane is an idea that won 3mE’s Willem Haverkort second prize in the ‘Best Tech-idea 2022’ competition run by the popular Dutch science magazine, ‘Kijk.’ “In electrolysis you make hydrogen and oxygen by applying a voltage to a salt-water mixture between two electrodes,” explains Haverkort. “This produces hydrogen at one end, and oxygen at the other end and usually there’s a membrane to stop them mixing and forming an explosive gas.” But using a membrane reduces energy efficiency by increasing resistance. So Haverkort has developed a different way to keep the hydrogen and oxygen separate using a flow system: “You make the water flow through the electrodes in opposite directions, so that the gases move away from each other without fear of them mixing.” This means that you can place the electrodes much closer together, reducing the resistance by a factor of ten, meaning more hydrogen for less energy and at lower costs. J.W. (Willem) Haverkort +31 15 27 86651 J.W.Haverkort@tudelft.nl Using graphene to listen to bacteria 3mE’s Farbod Alijani also appeared in the ‘Best Tech-idea 2022’ listing, coming in at fourth place, for his work on the use of graphene to ‘listen to bacteria’ in order to detect whether or not they are still living. Graphene is a form of carbon made up of extremely thin layers - just one-atom thick - which are very sensitive to external forces. By making a sort of ‘drum-skin’ of graphene, Alijani has been able to detect the tiniest of sounds, including the vibrations of a single living bacterium. This device can therefore be used to tell whether bacteria are still alive or not, which has great potential for health care in helping scientists detect which types of bacteria are antibiotic resistant and which are not. More KIJK Magazine - Beste Tech Idee 2022 (Dutch) Design of membraneless gas-evolving flow-through porous electrodes Dr. F. Alijani +31 15 27 86739 F.Alijani@tudelft.nl

NWO Open Technology funding to produce a versatile acid sustainably

The NWO has awarded over 5.3 million euros to six projects through the Open Technology Programme, including the research of Ludovic Jourdin to make products from CO2 and renewable electricity, based on a versatile acid. Apart from the NWO funding, companies and other organisations involved invest 1.1 million euros into the projects.

NWO Grant for e-HEAT: understanding and controlling heat to enable large-scale electrolysers

The Board of NWO's domain of Applied and Technical Sciences awarded funding to the project e-HEAT: Understanding and controlling heat to enable large-scale electrolysers by Dr J.W.R. Peeters of TU Delft, through the Open Technology Programme.

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Publications

Size-modified Poisson–Nernst–Planck approach for modeling a local electrode environment in CO2 electrolysis

Esaar Naeem Butt, Johan T. Padding and Remco Hartkamp

An analytical multiphase flow model for parallel plate electrolyzers

A. Rajora and J.W. Haverkort

Energy comparison of sequential and integrated CO2 capture and electrochemical conversion

Mengran Li, Erdem Irtem, Hugo-Pieter Iglesias van Montfort, Maryam Abdinejad & Thomas Burdyny

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Events

February

Lunch Lecture Climate Action Programme

e-Refinery Lecture February 7 by Ana Somoza Tornos

March

Climate Action Programme lecture March 2023

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