Axens (Rueil-Malmaison, France), SMS group subsidiary Paul Wurth and IFP Energies Nouvellas (IFPEN; Rueil-Malmaison, France) signed a co-development agreement for the optimization of the Reverse Water Gas Shift technology (RWGS) and its integration into e-fuel projects.
The RWGS technology is an essential part of the suite of technologies converting CO2 to renewable/low carbon fuels and chemicals intermediates.
The parties are cooperating based on their specific backgrounds, know-how and expertise:
- Axens is the licensor of the Gasel technology , an efficient FT process which converts syngas into liquid hydrocarbons, such as Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF). Axens also brings to the collaboration its recognized expertise of scaling up technologies from pilot to commercial scale integration and optimization of technologies suites.
- Paul Wurth, along with its mother company SMS group, is a leading international technology partner, plant builder and equipment developer, investing in projects for the conversion of CO2 and H2 to e-fuel. Its ambition is to bring its high temperature experience on equipment, internals, material selection etc. to the RWGS technology development and its application to e-fuel projects.
- IFPEN is a major research and innovation player in the fields of energy, transport and environment. IFPEN is well-known in the field of catalytic process development and has studied high-temperature processes for syngas production. This know-how led to the development of a proprietary RWGS technology and will be used to optimize the reaction conditions and performances and to design the RWGS reactor technology.
The parties are collaborating to define synergies to speed-up the improved RWGS technology industrialization and maturity level, to optimize its operating cost and output. This is key to bring to the market a commercial e-fuel scheme to efficiently produce synthetic fuel to support the global demand of SAF worldwide.