Short description: 

Biomass is a renewable energy source that is abundant in Euro-Mediterranean (EURO-MED) area. In particular, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, participating-among others (German, Cyprus)-in the present consortium hold more than 85% of the word’s olive production, cultivating at the same time large areas with grape vines. In view of this fact, there is a huge biomass potential regarding olive kernel and pruning from olive oil and grape vine cultures. In addition, these EURO-MED countries are still behind the current progress toward energy exploitation of municipal solid waste (MSW). In the light of the above aspects, the proposed project aims at developing an environmentally friendly and highly efficient process for the direct valorization of solid carbonaceous materials of low added value (e.g. biomass) and of particular importance for the EURO-MED area, namely: agricultural residues from olive and grape vines cultures and the organic fraction of urban waste, in a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) system, aided by an internal catalytic gasification process, towards electricity generation. To overcome the anodic kinetic restrictions derived from the limited contact between solid carbon and electrolyte/solid anode, a novel approach is proposed based on the in situ catalytic gasification of biomass to gaseous products and their consequent electro-oxidation at the anode surface.

Short Description: 

Nitrogen (NO_x) and nitrous (N₂O) oxides abatement is a subject of considerable environmental interest, since both contribute to a variety of environmental problems (Global Warbing, stratospheric ozone depletion, acid rain, photochemical smog). In this regard, the simultaneous abatement of NO_x and N₂O emissions, consist a challenging issue in the area of environmental catalysis.

The present project aims to develop highly effective catalytic materials, able to simultaneously control NO_x and N₂O emissions. Multifunctional materials of novel architecture are adopted to achieve this goal. The desired catalytic properties are expected to be tuned by combining the appropriate synthesis procedure with the simultaneous use of promoters.

From fundamental research viewpoint, the present project aims to gain insight into the mode of action of structural/surface promoters on the area of heterogeneous catalysis. In this context, advanced characterization techniques (XRD, XPS, SEM/EDS, TEM, DRIFT, FTIR, TPR/TPD) are employed to achieve the structure-activity correlation.

Short description: 

The worldwide growing energy demand cannot only be compensated by the renewable energy sources. Moreover, hydrogen energy market is at an early stage, notably hampered by the high production, storage and distribution costs. On the other hand, coal is by far the most abundant and economic fossil fuel resource, covering more than 25% of the world’s energy consumption. However, its low energy conversion efficiency attained  in conventional coal-fired plants along with the vast amount of greenhouse gas emissions, are major drawbacks towards the effective conversion of coal to energy. In this regard, the utilization of carbon with an environmental friendly and highly effective manner is of paramount importance. This is exactly the ultimate target of the present proposal, which aims at developing Direct Carbon Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (DC-SOFC) to directly exploit the chemical energy in solid carbonaceous materials with high fuel utilization and energy efficiency. To overcome the anodic kinetic restrictions derived from the limited contact between solid carbon and solid electrolyte/solid anode, a novel approach is proposed based on the internal (in situ) catalytic gasification of carbon to gaseous products and their consequent electro-oxidation at the anode surface.

Short description: 

Methanol synthesis at atmospheric pressure from CO₂ and H₂O through a novel electrochemically-assisted process is proposed. The development of highly active and stable electro-catalysts as well as the fundamental understanding of their physicochemical characteristics is a challenging issue toward the successful implementation of the current project. The anodic catalyst will be exposed to H₂O, catalysed its electrolysis to protons (H⁺) and oxygen. The protons will be transferred electrochemically through a conducting membrane to the cathodic electrode-catalyst, where they will react with CO₂ to form methanol. Simultaneously, the cathodic electro-catalyst will activate the C=O bond via electrochemical removal of O₂- ions to the anode.