ALGAESOL: Sustainable aviation and shipping fuels from microalgae and direct solar BES energy

The ALGAESOL project is one of the newly funded Horizon Europe projects under the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), the European Commission Agency which manages decarbonisation and sustainable growth.

Faced with the pressing challenges of climate change, resource depletion and energy security, it is of utmost importance to work towards a more sustainable and diversified energy landscape. Amongst others, we need to harness the power of the sun to generate clean and renewable energy. This will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, mitigate climate change, as well as foster technological innovation, job creation, and energy independence.

Within this context, ALGAESOL proposes an ambitious and efficient R&I workplan to develop several solutions for the sustainable conversion of sunlight into fuels. To achieve this, the project will advance the current state-of-the-art while creating and consolidating new value chains for shipping and aviation fuels based on microalgae and direct solar renewable fuel technologies.

The main objective of the ALGAESOL project is to develop cost-effective, sustainable and renewable aviation and shipping fuels based on game-changing microalgae and direct solar fuel production and purification technologies in order to accelerate the replacement of fossil-based energy technologies.

ALGAESOL will develop and evaluate several solutions for the sustainable conversion of sunlight into fuels. The project will advance current state-of-the-art by creating and consolidating new value chains for shipping and aviation fuels based on micro-algae and direct solar renewable fuel technologies. ALGAESOL will reduce production costs by 25%and improve efficiency of converting solar energy, carbon dioxide (CO2) and organic wastes into renewable methanol (CH3OH), methane (CH4) and biooils, forming the basis for aviation and shipping fuels. Various systems (biologic, photoelectrochemical, electrochemical and bioelectrochemical) will be evaluated and smart reactor design will be combined with process improvements. Targeted are microbial contamination control strategies, the increase solar to chemical energy conversion efficiencies, and improved algal strains to generate lipid superproducers will facilitate extraction, followed by innovative purification and hydro-processing technology to deliver the fuels. Enhanced sustainability of the developed fuels, is also based on a circular bio economy approach by using waste streams and about 80% of residual biomass generate in the ALGAESOL value chain will be re-circulated as input for the conversion process. The economic and environmental, as well as social sustainability will guide the design and scale-up at process level and for the whole value chain in alignment with the European Green Deal priorities. Used will be computational modelling and process simulations, Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), Life Cycle Costs (LCC), and Social Life Cycle Analysis (S-LCA) as well as practical engineering approaches. Through this approach is the overall reduction of the environmental impact when producing biofuels expected to be about 20% relative to today's processes. The project will reinforce the European scientific basis, technology leadership and competitiveness through international collaborations.

ALGAESOL started formally on the 1^st of May 2024 and will span a period of three years.