BACK-TO-FUEL

DESCRIPTION

BAC-TO-FUEL aimed to respond to the global challenge of finding new sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels by developing, integrating and validating a disruptive prototype system at TRL5 which is able to transform CO₂/H₂ into added-value products in a sustainable and cost-effective way which:

1. Mimics the photosynthetic process of plants using novel inorganic photocatalysts which are capable of producing hydrogen in a renewable way from photocatalytic splitting of water in the presence of sunlight
2. Uses enhanced bacterial media to convert CO₂ and the renewable hydrogen into biofuels (i.e. ethanol and butanol both important fuels for transport) using a novel electro-biocatalytic cell which can handle fluctuations in hydrogen and power supply lending itself to coupling to renewable energy technologies

This was a multidisciplinary project which brought together leaders in the fields of materials chemistry, computational chemistry, chemical engineering, microbiology and bacterial engineering. BAC-TO-FUEL aimed to validate a prototype system at TRL5 able to transform CO₂/H₂ into added-value products in a sustainable and cost-effective way specifically for the European transport sector.

BAC-TO-FUEL has been looking to validate at TRL5 a prototype system for advanced renewable fuel production through biological conversion of CO₂ and renewable hydrogen. It was one of three projects selected under the call LC-SC3-RES-2-2018 – Disruptive innovation in clean energy technologies. Although the validation of the overall system in a relevant environment has not been fulfilled, the consortium has achieved valuable results at the level of different work packages with significant potential for innovation and exploitation, with the publication of eight peer reviewed publications and two patents filed to protect the technology.

The results of the project were very important and crucial for NANOGAP, as it is one of the owners of the patents filed to protect this new and disruptive technology for the H₂ production.

Funding info

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, under Grant Agreement No. 825999

Consortium members

• USC
• NANOGAP
• Lancaster U.
• VITO
• Wageningen U.
• TU Berlin