Producing energy from renewable sources is a technological paradigm shift requiring to tackle scientific challenges. Fossil fuels are typically associated with centralized energy production, with traditional renewable energies, e.g., hydroelectric, still requiring major centralized infrastructure for their exploitation. Renewable energies will be produced by a mix of centralized and distributed facilities, with very different characteristics to be integrated, possibly geographically distributed on a broad area, but without the simplicity of transportation of oil or natural gas.  Imagine producing hydrogen from solar energy in places with very high irradiation: how can you transport it at long distance safely and at competitive costs? Dream of exploiting CO2 to achieve this objective, turning this threatening gas into an ally to achieve zero greenhouse gases emissions by 2050 while promoting economic and societal growth. This is our goal with the “PROCEED - UPSTREAM INTEGRATION OF 112CO2 WITH GREEN METHANE PRODUCTION” project: hydrogenating carbon dioxide to produce methane, which can then be thermally decomposed by the catalytic technology developed within the 112CO2 project, thus achieving a virtuous cycle which combines energy production, storage, transportation and use while reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The Team:

The “PROCEED - UPSTREAM INTEGRATION OF 112CO2 WITH GREEN METHANE PRODUCTION”, aiming at investigating the catalytic hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to produce methane as a high energy density/long discharge time storage for hydrogen produced by renewable sources, will be developed by the Laboratory of Materials Modeling and Simulations – LMMS of the University of Ferrara. Catalytic reactions are very complex processes and access to their atomistic details is crucial to improve their efficiency and selectivity. In our lab we develop and apply methods that combined with the computational power of local, national, and international research infrastructures allow us to understand how atoms interact to form and break bonds, turning carbon dioxide and hydrogen into methane, assisted by a suitable catalyst accelerating the process.