The Instituto de Tecnología Química (UPV-CSIC) participates in the European project SUPERVAL funded by the EU
Valencia, July 6, 2023 – The prof. Hermenegildo García, member of the Photocatalysis Group at the Instituto de Tecnología Química (UPV-CSIC), participates in the European project SUPERVAL (SUstainable Photo-ElectRochemical VALorization of flue gases) funded by the European Union within the framework of the EIC Pathfinder Challenges 2022 call. This is an ambitious initiative aimed at converting, in a sustainable way, carbon and nitrogen emissions into valuable resources.
This three-year project, scheduled to start on the 1st of November 2023, brings together a consortium of eight organizations from Italy, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, and Denmark.
Limiting post-combustion emissions is one of the most urgent actions for environmental remediation. However, capture technologies face multiple challenges mostly due to the low concentration of pollutants, such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) or nitrogen oxides (NOₓ), making them highly inefficient. Additionally, even if successful, there are few plausible uses for the captured pollutants, apart from long-term geological storage.
In pursuing a more sustainable future, SUPERVAL’s primary objective is to address these challenges simultaneously, investigating the viability of a technology capable of transforming the treatment of post-combustion gases to unlock the potential of carbon and nitrogen components by separating and transforming them into valuable resources.
This is not the first project that the EU funds in that direction. SUPERVAL builds on the A-LEAF project, which is featured as a success story on the European Commission website (https://bit.ly/3fLTM7r). The A-LEAF project achieved the direct use of sunlight to transform waste carbon dioxide (CO₂) into valuable chemical fuels using a clean, fast, and cost-effective solution from low-cost, non-critical raw materials and processes.
The SUPERVAL technology will optimize and expand this strategy to the capture of the contaminants (CO₂ and NOₓ) from flue gas to convert them into added-value commodities for the chemical industry using exclusively renewable power sources from photovoltaics. All are implemented in a single, autonomous installation, to be validated in an industrial environment.
Like the previous A-LEAF project, SUPERVAL will be coordinated by the research institution Institut Catala d’Investigacio Química (ICIQ-CERCA) and will bring together a consortium of diverse organizations contributing their unique expertise and resources. The participating partners include Orchestra Scientific. Universitat Politècnica de València (Instituto de Tecnología Química UPV-CSIC) , Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per la Scienza e Tecnologia dei Materiali – INSTM UdR Messina, CASPE Laboratory. Forschungszentrum Julich (who was also a consortium partner in the A-LEAF project), Technische Universiteit Eindhoven – TU/e. Vareser 96 and 2.-O LCA Consultants Aps.
