A partnership between the Technology Center of the Chemical and Textile Industry (Senai Cetiqt) with Repsol Sinopec Brasil, Hytron and the Chemical Engineering department of the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo (USP) started the “CO2CHEM” project, which aims to objective to develop technological alternatives for the production of green hydrocarbons from carbon dioxide (CO2).

With financial support from the National Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANP) and the Brazilian Industrial Research and Innovation Company (Embrapii), the project aims to face the great challenge of climate change, derived from the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere, he explained to the Agency Brazil the coordinator of Process Engineering at Senai Cetiqt, João Valentim (photo). The Paris Agreement, signed by 195 nations in 2015, set the goal of keeping the planet's temperature rise below 2ºC until the end of this century. João Valentim recalled, however, that studies indicate that this goal will not be achieved if the economy is carbon neutral. “That is, it neither emits (CO2) nor takes away”. For the target to be achieved, the economy, starting in 2050, would have to be carbon-negative.

"Our productive activities should consume more carbon dioxide than they emit to guarantee the climate pact signed in the Paris Agreement", stressed the coordinator of Senai Cetiqt. Valentim also assured that there is a need to remove carbon from the atmosphere. From a technological point of view, the analysis is that this had to be raw material for another product, which does not have a very short cycle.

Brazilian technology

João Valentim stated that, under this perspective, the CO2CHEM project can contribute to achieving the goals established in the Paris Agreement, supplying Brazilian technology. "Other countries are also involved in this challenge. And [the project] will place Brazil as one of the protagonists and holders of this know-how, which are technologies that convert CO2 into products ”.

At the end of the project, estimated in two years, that is, in 2023, the forecast is that a pilot unit, the size of a container, can already be transported to places where there are large CO2 producers, such as cement units. , for the production of the first drops of synthetic fuel, also called green or renewable hydrocarbon. The raw materials for this project are carbon dioxide, water and electricity, as explained by the coordinator. “At the end of the project, we will have plants (sets of equipment) in containers that will use electricity, water and CO2. You will get a product equivalent to oil ”.

Valentim said that energy products, such as gasoline and diesel, could be obtained as materials, such as polymers. The production of so-called green hydrocarbons consumes several molecules of CO2 and, "even when you re-emit, the balance of your process is negative carbon. That is, you are taking carbon out of the atmosphere and replacing gasoline, which increases the concentration in normal gasoline. carbon dioxide, for an equal gasoline that does not have this problem ”.

Sustainability

Valentim stressed that all of this has to be seen and analyzed from a sustainability perspective, taking into account environmental and social aspects, such as security and remuneration for workers. Another fundamental perspective is that the process is economically viable. The Process Engineering coordinator at Senai Cetiqt explained that the project will be continuously tested and guided by these three results: economic, environmental and social, from a global point of view.

In addition to CO2, which is the raw material for the project, Valentim stressed that electricity must be from a clean source. "It cannot be produced by coal". The project will also give a circular look at water consumption, aiming at its efficiency, and also for other generations of waste. "The project will have to generate a solution that does not have a negative impact on the waste aspect either," he noted.

It will be up to Senai Cetiqt to conduct part of the laboratory activities for the development of the green hydrocarbon production process. In addition, it will carry out the technical-economic feasibility assessments, with the support of Hytron and USP, making use of process and economic simulators, with the support of the organization's Chemical Transformation and Process Engineering teams.

The researchers will work from the development to the pilot scale implantation of two systems integrated with national technologies capable of consuming CO2 from different sources, such as offshore exploration and production activities for the production of green hydrocarbons, in a closed production cycle, and consumption of CO2 powered by renewable energy sources.