Page 15 - Industrial plants

problems related to natural intermittent production of
renewables and limitations in their storage and
distribution.

Moreover, after the European Commission has
presented a plan to allow sales of new cars with internal
combustion engines after 2035 if they run on eFuels
only, a huge interest for them and for their production
has grown in the industrial community. As a matter of
fact, today there are basically no industrial plants in
operation to produce such type of fuels.

What are eFuels?

In general eFuels, such as eGasoline, eDiesel,
eKerosene (or eJet Fuel), eMethanol, are all fuels in gas that electricity from renewable energies is used in their
or liquid form that are produced from renewable production and only as much CO2 is emitted during
sources or decarbonised electricity. This raw material use as was previously bound during production.
differentiates them from biofuels, which are primarily
produced from biomass.
Specifically, eFuels production is obtained through the What are SAFs?
generation of Green Hydrogen. This type of hydrogen is Among eFuels, great significance is taken by the
produced by means of an electrolysis process, powered Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF): they are the jet fuels,
by a significant amount of renewable electricity, that derived both from renewable sources and from
breaks down water (e.g. seawater from desalination biomass, used for aircrafts engines.
plants) into its components of hydrogen and oxygen. Their production is probably the most urgent among all
In a second process step, with the aid of e.g. Fischer- non-fossil fuels because the potential alternatives to
Tropsch synthesis, the hydrogen is combined at high them seems today not practical: the full electric-
pressure and temperature with CO2 recovered from air powered flight will only be possible for short-haul
or from biogenic sources, and converted into a synthetic journeys in the foreseeable future due to the weight of
crude, eventually separated in different cuts. Because the batteries required, while use of hydrogen, which has
electricity is used for the production of eFuels, the an energy density per unit volume that is one quarter of
overall process is known as a Power-to-Liquid (PtL). traditional jet fuel, would imply a redesign of much of
The climate neutrality of eFuels derives from the fact the aircrafts, from the propulsion system to fuel storage,

IndustrIal Plants - May 2023
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