Despite considerable support for the hydrogen mobility sector, there remains low take-up of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and vehicle sales remain low. This is a significant issue for the commercialisation of the sector, as whilst sales volumes are low, vehicle production costs and prices remain high. The lack of demand for hydrogen also damages the business case for investment in early hydrogen refuelling stations (HRS). The ZEFER project proposes a solution to this issue. ZEFER will demonstrate viable business cases for captive fleets of FCEVs in operations which can realise value from hydrogen vehicles, for example by intensive use of vehicles and HRS, or by avoiding pollution charges in city centres with applications where the refuelling characteristics of FCEVs suit the duty cycles of the vehicles. ZEFER aims to drive sales of FCEVs in these applications to other cities, thereby increasing sales volumes of FCEVs and improving the business case for HRS serving these captive fleets. ZEFER will deploy 180 FCEVs in Paris, Brussels and London. 170 FCEVs will be operated as taxi or private hire vehicles, and the remaining 10 will be used by the police. The vehicle customers are all partners in the project, so that deployments will occur quickly, (the majority of vehicles will be deployed by the end of 2018) and FCEV mileage will be accumulated rapidly (in Paris and Brussels mileages will be over 90,000 km/year; and in London mileages will be over 40,000 km/year). These applications mean that vehicle performance will be tested to the limit, allowing a demonstration of the technical readiness of new generation FCEVs for high usage applications. The vehicles will be supported by existing and planned HRS. ZEFER will complement these ambitious deployments with robust data collection, analysis of the business cases and technical performance of the deployments. A targeted dissemination campaign will aim to replicate the business cases across Europe.

Catalytic reactors account for production of 90% of chemicals we use in everyday life. To achieve the decarbonisation of European economy and comply with the 20-20-20 target, resource utilization and energy efficiency will play a major role in all industrial processes. The concept of PRINTCR3DIT is to employ 3D printing to boost process intensification in the chemical industries by adapting reactors and structured catalysts to the requirements of the reaction. This manufacturing technique is particularly useful in reactions where diffusion, mixing and/or heat transfer are limitations against reaching higher performance. The utilization of the concept of 3D printing will also reduce the resource utilization of reactor and catalyst manufacture, energy consumed (< 15%) and transportation. The rationale of using 3D printing will follow a generic and systematic structure for implementation. The methodology will be applied to three markets of fine chemicals, specialty chemicals and fertilizers, ranging from few tons to millions of tons of production per year. This demonstrates the enormous versatility of 3D printing for reactor and catalyst designs that cannot be improved with traditional building and design tools. For all these processes, the challenges to be solved are thermal management, innovative reactor design and flow distribution. These examples will provide realistic data in different markets to delineate business case scenarios with the options of new integrated plants or retrofitting for large-scale applications. Application of cutting-edge 3D printing to catalytic reactors will foster higher productivity, a more competitive industrial sector and higher value jobs in Europe - keeping leadership in such a challenging arena. PRINTCR3DIT is a joint effort between world-leading industries (4), innovative SMEs (4), R&D institutes (4) and a university that aim to accelerate deployment of a set of products to the market.

Propylene production is classified as the 4th largest emitter of greenhouse gases among the major chemical compounds. As the polypropylene market is huge and still growing, it is essential to find alternatives to current, energy-intensive production processes to meet the European environmental challenges. Other C3 derivatives, more specifically propanol and propanal, are also very high added-value chemicals with growing markets, obtained via waste-generating and energy-consuming processes. Today, unused carbon resources are widely available and most of the time wasted.The C123 project’s main goal is the validation in a relevant environment (TRL5) of an efficient and selective transformation of current generally accessible, unexploited, cheap methane resources (stranded gas (CH4) and biogas (CH4+CO2)) to propylene in particular and C3 products in general. To this aim, C123 will develop new catalytic materials in novel process configurations and related operating procedures allowing the conversion of these resources to propylene through Oxidative Conversion of Methane, leading to an ethylene, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen mixture with an optimised composition for further HydroFormylation into propanal and/or propanol, ultimately being dehydrated into propylene, either in an integrated manner or as a stand-alone step. C123 will adopt an integrated approach, not studying each step separately but considering the process as a whole, optimising recycling, avoiding separation, using variable feedstocks, and increasing resource and carbon efficiency. The process will be evaluated and validated for implementation both as decentralised localised units (~10 kt/y) – the modular route, and in existing large facilities (>140 kt/y) –the add-on route. Throughout the development and thanks to the perfect complementarity of the partners and the very strong industrial commitment, emphasis will be put to maximise further exploitation of the results through industrial implementation.