ARENHA (Advanced materials and Reactors for Energy storage tHrough Ammonia) is a European project with global impact seeking to develop, integrate and demonstrate key material solutions enabling the use of ammonia for flexible, safe and profitable storage and utilization of energy. Ammonia is an excellent energy carrier due to its high energy density, carbon-free composition, industrial know-how and relative ease of storage. ARENHA demonstrates the feasibility of ammonia as a dispatchable form of large-scale energy storage, enabling the integration of renewable electricity in Europe and creating global green energy corridors for Europe energy import diversification. Innovative Materials are developed and integrated into ground-breaking systems in order to demonstrate a flexible and profitable power-to-ammonia value chain but also several key energy discharge processes. Specifically, ARENHA will develop advanced SOEC for renewable hydrogen production, catalysts for low temperature/pressure ammonia synthesis, solid absorbents for ammonia synthesis intensification and storage, catalysts and membrane reactors for ammonia decomposition. Energy discharge processes studied in ARENHA tackle various applications from ammonia decomposition into pure H2 for FCEV, direct ammonia utilization on SOFCs for power and ICEs for mobility. ARENHA will demonstrate the full power-to-ammonia-to-usage value chain at TRL 5 and the outstanding potential of green ammonia to address the issue of large scale energy storage through LCA, sociological survey, techno-economic analysis deeply connected with multiscale modeling. ARENHA’s ambitious objectives will be tackled by a consortium of 11 partners from universities, RTO, SMEs and large companies covering the adequate set of skills and market positioning. Considering the global nature of the ARENHA project, the consortium will strongly interact with its international advisory board composed of key energy stakeholders from the 5 continents.

INNOMEM gathers some of the most recognised Membrane departments (>20) in Europe and acknowledged facilitators of technology transfer, corporate finance, funding and coaching, making available (i) the most promising and breakthrough manufacturing pilots and (ii) advanced characterization techniques and modelling together with (iii) non-technical services through this Test Bed: while relevant improvement metrics can be defined, the potential network of reachable stakeholders counts thousands of businesses on an international scale. Key facts are reported below. Within the scope of INNOMEM, main different types of membrane materials (polymeric, ceramic, metallic and nanocomposite), surface modification, membrane morphology and geometry and applications will be covered, providing for the first time a single entry point for industrial partners, mainly SMEs, aspiring to answer their concerns but with minimum investment costs and reduction of risks associated with technology transfer, while opening-up opportunities for demonstration of innovative nanomembranes in real life industrial problems (TRL7) and thus faster opening the market for these new products. The main KPIs for INNOMEM: Technical: 20% Membrane productivity improvement, 30% faster verification, >40% CO2 emissions and energy consumption reduction. Non-Technical: 10 Showcases, >15 Democases, >100 reachable SMEs and > 300 reachable investors. INNOMEM stems from the consideration that the development of products based on advanced membranes and nanomaterials require access to finance and an optimised business planning, relying on a sound prior analysis of the market, of the economic impacts and capacity of a company. The project aims at developing and organizing a sustainable Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) for nano-enabled membranes for different applications. The OITB will also offer a network of facilities and services through a Single Entry Point (SEP) to companies (inside or outside Europe).

Europe faces the joint challenge of decarbonising ever newer sectors and applications, whilst also seeking clean waste treatment and valorisation pathways. With over 300Mt of waste generated each year, Europe could produce up to 30Mt of clean hydrogen from waste to accelerate the decarbonisation of challenging sectors like aviation and heavy industry. However, exploiting this energy potential remains a challenge and so far, no robust and cost-effective solutions has been successfully commercialised. HYIELD aims to open a new low-cost pathway for clean hydrogen production and waste disposal. The project proposes a novel multi-stage steam gasification and syngas purification plant concept, which will efficiently convert different organic waste streams into hydrogen and is expected to achieve H2 99.97% purity and 62-74% energy conversion efficiency. The concept includes several beyond state-of-the-art innovations, including a novel process design, waste heat exploitation, Water-Gas-Shift membrane reactor, low-pressure metal hydride storage buffer and IA driven digital twin. The solution will be implemented at 3MW scale in a cement plant in Spain, where the hydrogen will be exploited for cement kiln firing. The demonstrator is expected to operate for 4,000h over a 15-month testing period with at least 10 different organic waste streams, treating over 3.9kt of dry material and producing 650t of hydrogen. It will also carry out the groundwork for up-scaling post-project locally and across the EU, working closely with industrial partners from the cement, steel, copper and gas sectors. It is forecasted that the solution will be able to deliver a Levelized Cost of Hydrogen of 2.19€/kg at industrial scale (20,000t/year waste treated), far below current electrolyser pathways (>5.5€/kg). The project is led by a consortium of Europe’s leading research groups, technology developers and industrial players in the hydrogen sector, from Spain, France, Germany, Norway and Luxembourg.

The MACBETH consortium provides a breakthrough technology for advanced downstream processing by combining catalytic synthesis with the corresponding separation units in a single highly efficient catalytic membrane reactor (CMR). This disruptive technology has the ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) of large volume industrial process by up to 45 %. Additionally, resource and energy efficiency will be increased by up to 70%. The revolutionary new reactor design will not only guarantee substantially smaller and safer production plants, but has also a tremendous competitive advantage since CAPEX is decreased by up to 50% and OPEX by up to 80%. The direct industrial applicabilty will be demonstrated by the long term operation of TRL 7 demo plants for the highly relevant and large scale processes: hydroformylation, hydrogen production, propane dehydrogenation. The confidence of the MACBETH consortium to reach its highly ambitious goals are underlined by two special extensions that go well beyond the ordinary scope of an EU project: 1) Transfer of CMR technology to biotechnology: Within MACBETH we will demonstrate that starting from building blocks of TRL 5 (not from a TRL 5 pilot plant), that fit the requirements of selective enzymatical cleavage of fatty acids with the combined support and system knowledge of the experienced CMR partners, a TRL 7 demo plant will be established and operated 2) Creation of the spin-off European “Lighthouse Catalytic Membrane Reactors” (LCMR) within MACBETH: A European competence center for CMR will be established already within the MACBETH project with an actual detailed business plan including partner commitment. These efforts will ultimately lead to the foundation of the “Lighthouse Catalytic Membrane Reactors” (LCMR) that will provide access to the combined knowledge of the MACBETH project .

Through a holistic approach, APOLO aims to tackle the challenges of power conversion from ammonia and develop an efficient and flexible ammonia cracking technology. This technology will be coupled with fuel cells and engines to achieve complete decarbonization of the maritime sector. As the main objective of the call is to demonstrate scalability beyond 3MW, the consortium will focus on showcasing the following demonstration units: i) A 125kW power conversion system that utilizes an ammonia cracker coupled with a PEM fuel cell system, achieving an overall system efficiency of 51% to 54%. The ammonia cracker will be customized to work with different pressure conditions and efficiency levels of PEM fuel cells. A comparison of efficiency levels will be conducted to evaluate the flexibility of the cracking system for all types of PEM fuel cells. ii) A 125kW partial ammonia cracker coupled with a 4-stroke engine, exhibiting an overall system efficiency above 45% APOLO is dedicated to minimizing the ecological footprint of transportation and energy, focusing on the maritime sector. To achieve this, we're actively developing innovative power conversion technologies such as cracker, fuel cell, and engine, and utilizing life cycle assessment (LCA) at various stages of product development. The technologies developed in APOLO are capable of targeting the first 30,000 ships in the market. Initially, the focus will be on vessels with 1 to 10 MW propulsion, with a significant number of them being around 3 MW in the next decade, as these are the first vessels relevant for ammonia-powered solutions.