Development of reactor modelling for CO2 conversion into jet fuel (4AirCRAFT Project)

• Grant number: 23/08268-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: November 01, 2023
• End date: February 28, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Chemical Engineering - Chemical Technology
• Principal Investigator: Reinaldo Giudici
• Grantee: Egydio Terziotti Neto
• Host Institution: Escola Politécnica (EP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The growing demand for oil barrels worldwide and its large-scale use in the fossil fuel sector raises concerns in regard to the greenhouse effect intensification. Due to its direct responsibility for about 12% of the emissions worldwide, the aviation sector has become a key point in the study of actions aimed at mitigating the emission of pollutants on a large scale and that can also promote a sustainable development agenda. Bearing this in mind, the 4AirCRAFT project was proposed as an international partnership between nine universities, whose objective is to develop an innovative technology, capable of mitigating carbon emissions through the use of green hydrogen (synthesized from the energy produced by solar panels) in order to produce aviation fuel in a single reaction system, which will be possible from the joint catalytic action of electro and chemocatalysts, that will be developed by partner universities of the project. In this way, both electro-catalysis mechanism and the already known Fischer-Tropsch synthesis will be combined. In addition, as an integral part of the package of activities for which each of the partner universities is responsible, the University of São Paulo will carry out a modeling and simulation of the entire reaction system, starting from the fundamental laws of catalysis, reactors and transport phenomena, in order to adequately describe the system and adjust the results collected experimentally by the other members of the project. In this way, from the results obtained, it will be possible to bring rise to information about the real possibility of implementing a new and innovative process like the one proposed by 4AirCRAFT, which would be a great contribution to the entire scientific community, given all the great amount of innovation proposed by the project.