OBIWAN focuses on converting organic waste streams into advanced chemicals and sustainable aviation fuels. After an initial anaerobic digestion to produce biogas, a mixture of CH4 and CO2, further chemical conversion will harness the CO2 in the final products.

The project focuses on two key innovations:

    The conversion of biogas into chemicals/fuels ideally requires a biogas composition of 60% CH4 and 40% CO2 with minimum impurities. Given the variation in substrate types and their seasonal changes, it is a major challenge, even on a laboratory scale, to produce biogas with a stable composition. Therefore, experimental measurements will be complemented by the development of an innovative numerical tool to simulate the process and control the reactors in a relevant way to ensure stable biogas production, both in terms of production rate and gas composition.
    The catalytic decomposition of methane into solid carbon with an H2-rich gas as a by-product has recently been gaining popularity for the production of so-called ‘turquoise’ high-quality hydrogen. However, this is usually at the expense of the properties of the solid carbon. Within OBIWAN, the aim is to take the hydrogen-oriented process from laboratory scale to industrially relevant scale, for which the proof of concept will be demonstrated in an original Electrothermal Fluidised Bed Reactor (ETFB). Other key innovations will be realised with regard to biogas purification/separation and CO2 hydrogenation into methanol.

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