European CARENA project speeds up implementation of membrane reactors

The 1st of June marked the start of the CARENA project: Catalytic Reactors based on New Materials. A large EU-funded collaborative project to create technologies enabling efficient conversion of light alkanes and CO2 into higher value chemicals. To reduce the dependency of the European community on imported oil, the CARENA project will promote the implementation of catalytic membrane reactors in the European chemical industry. The Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) is the coordinator of this four-year project in which 18 partners participate. Other Dutch partners are AkzoNobel, Process Design Center and University of Twente.

In a global environment with higher cost of naphtha from crude oil and higher cost of CO2, the chemical industry may need to turn to novel feeds such as natural gas, coal and biomass to stay competitive. Technologies that are able to use as feedstocks light alkanes (C1 – C4) and CO2 are needed. However, light alkanes and CO2, in contrast to long-chain hydrocarbons from oil, are stable molecules that are difficult to activate and transform directly and selectively to added value products. Radical scientific and technological improvements are thus required to enable efficient and competitive routes for their use.
Process intensification plays a crucial role in overcoming these challenges. Development of catalytic membrane reactors opens new pathways for materials chemistry and processes and are one of the leading process intensification technologies.

Benefits to the chemical industry
The objective of the CARENA project is to develop and implement novel nano-structured materials and optimized membrane-reactor based chemical processes.  This will result in several advantages for the chemical industry. The main benefits for the European industry are to:

• Create new possibilities for the use of cheaper, less reactive raw materials.
• Reduce environmental impact, energy and raw materials consumption by increasing process selectivity, creating innovative process flow schemes and reducing the number of process steps.
• Reduce process risks due to the use of these new and/or more efficiently integrated processes.

“ECN has extensive knowledge on process intensification and is already working in this area with the large chemical industry to develop membrane reactors. The CARENA project will speed up the implementation of membrane reactors on a large scale. Through these initiatives a substantial and sustainable improvement in energy efficiency can be achieved," Peter Alderliesten, Program Manager Sustainable  Process & Heat Technology at ECN.

Strong European partners
To achieve competitiveness and sustainability of new chemical processes through the development of highly innovative nano-structured materials and optimized membrane-reactors, scientific excellence needs to be combined with industrial know-how of leading businesses. CARENA brings together a strong European consortium with top level universities, R&D centres, industrial technology providers, chemical producers and innovative SME’s from 8 European countries. European chemical companies as AkzoNobel and Arkema ensure a strong industrial leadership to the project. Technology providers and developers include Johnson Matthey, StGobain, Tecnimont KT, Linde, Acktar and PDC. Scientific excellence is strengthened with top-level academic partners and research institutes: CEA, ECN, SINTEF, CNRS-IEM, CNRS-IRCE, Diamond, Technion, Universities of Salerno, Twente and Hannover. The participation of the EMH shows the ambition to link the project to the part of the European Research Area (ERA) associated to membrane technologies, following recommendations issued from the NanoMempro network of Excellence. (NMP - FP6).

For more information see http://carenafp7.eu/

Contact ECN
Arend de Groot
Process intensification
Email: a.degroot@remove-this-part-ecn.nl 
Phone: +31 224 568240

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