Our Approach

Currently, DME is commercially produced through an indirect, two-step process involving the production of methanol and its subsequent dehydration. This process is energy intensive and requires substantial capital and infrastructure investments.
CO₂FOKUS will demonstrate the viability of a single-step process involving the direct and continuous synthesis of DME from industrial CO₂ and H₂ in a more efficient way.

This will involve both catalytic chemical and electrochemical conversion through innovative multichannel catalytic reactors and solid oxide electrolyser cells. Multichannel reactors will be developed and manufactured by project partners using 3D printing techniques, and subsequently tested in an industrial environment with a CO₂ point source.
Attention will be given to both the process itself and, more widely, to its economic evaluation and expected environmental and social impacts, to maximise the likelihood of its successful application. This will encourage the adoption of the technology and allow the integrated CO₂FOKUS systems to be easily deployed in existing plants.

THE CO₂Fokus project consists of several steps

1 Catalyst development:

Development and production of highly selective and durable new catalysts, to ensure efficiency and lower costs in comparison with the conventional DME production process.

2 Reactors development:

Development of structured multi-channel reactors with optimal characteristics for DME production. Their design will incorporate novel 3D printing technologies, to lay down functional material with high fidelity and near exact repeatability.

3 Solid oxide electrolyser cell and co-electrolysis system development:

Development of solid oxide electrolyser cells, to convert CO₂ and H₂O to a mixture of CO and H₂ required for DME synthesis in the catalytic reactor.

4 Scale-up

Optimisation, integration and scale-up of the developed technologies, suited for operation at industrial sites.

5 Economic, Social and Environmental Assessment:

Economic evaluation and full costs assessment, through a Life Cycle Cost analysis. Moreover, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and a Social-Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) will quantify the environmental and social aspects and impacts of the new DME production process from CO₂ and H₂.