Audi: Fuel Production With Micro-organisms

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Audi: Fuel Production With Micro-organisms
Audi: Fuel Production With Micro-organisms

Video: Audi: Fuel Production With Micro-organisms

Video: Audi: Fuel Production With Micro-organisms
Video: Can microbes actually produce electricity? 2024, March
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Audi is working hard on CO2-neutral mobility. The Ingolstadt-based company is now not only involved as an energy producer, but also as a producer of fuels with microorganisms.

By Frank Mertens

Is that what "Vorsprung durch Technik" looks like? The VW subsidiary Audi will not launch the natural gas-powered A3 Sportback TCNG until autumn next year. Damn late, you might think. After all, other manufacturers have long been on the market with natural gas vehicles - not just volume manufacturers. Daimler recently announced that it would now also expand its range of CNG models with the new Mercedes B-Class. And Audi? You will look in vain for a natural gas car on offer here.

So the VW subsidiary overslept another trend? Not at all, says Reiner Mangold, who is responsible for sustainable product development at Ingolstadt. Mangold has to say something like that in his position, anything else would be a surprise. But Audi doesn't have to be the first to introduce new technologies. This claim, which one might assume based on the brand claim, does not seem to be made in Ingolstadt.

Vision of CO2-neutral mobility

Rather, you want to make your customers an offer that is otherwise not available in this form. It is the same with natural gas propulsion. Here it is not enough for the Ingolstadt-based customers that customers can fill up their cars with fossil natural gas. You want to think about the topic holistically. After all, the VW subsidiary has a vision - and that is CO2-neutral mobility. It is clear that there is a long way to go.

Natural gas tank in the Audi A3 Sportback TCNG
Natural gas tank in the Audi A3 Sportback TCNG

But at some point you have to start doing it, says Mangold. And the beginning has been made. In May 2011 Audi presented its e-gas project in Hamburg and announced that it was participating in a wind farm in the North Sea. The car manufacturer thus became an energy producer. By the time the Audi A3 Sportback TNCG is launched in the autumn of next year, the company will be ready to generate renewable energy. To this end, the company not only participated in an offshore wind farm, but also built a plant in cooperation with SolarFuel in Werlte, northern Germany, which produces synthetic natural gas on an industrial scale from renewable electricity.

Production of 1000 tons of methane

Methanation in the Audi e-gas project
Methanation in the Audi e-gas project

In the Emsland, 1,000 tons of methane will be produced annually from 2013, with 2,800 tons of CO2 being bound during its production. With an annual mileage of 15,000 kilometers, this amount of methane is enough to supply 1,500 A3 Sportback TCNGs with regenerative Audi e-gas. The TCNG-Audi is also a bi-fuel vehicle. In other words: it can be operated with both gasoline and natural gas. It also has a 1.4 liter petrol engine with 110 hp. The total range is around 1200 kilometers (400 kilometers with gas, 800 kilometers with gasoline). Incidentally, in gas operation the consumption is 3.6 kilograms per 100 kilometers. In the so-called "well-to-wheel" analysis, i.e. the overall ecological balance, one comes to a CO2 value of less than 30 grams per kilometer with Audi e-gas. Not a bad value.

Mangold is certain that the German energy industry could also benefit from the Audi e-gas project in the medium term. Why? Because with the process used in Werlte, electricity generated from renewable sources can be efficiently stored. For example, excess electricity capacity could be converted into Audi e-gas and then stored in the public gas network. If energy is then required, it can be fed into the power grid.

Fuel production with microorganisms

Audi relies on microorganisms in fuel production
Audi relies on microorganisms in fuel production

In addition to the production of e-gas, Audi is also concentrating on the production of fuels - and one does not think of the controversial biofuels here. But instead of relying on the use of renewable raw materials such as corn or rapeseed, Audi is trying to produce synthetic fuels with microorganisms in cooperation with the biotechnology company Joule in Bedford in the US state of Massachusetts. As with plants, these microorganisms also use photosynthesis, i.e. absorb CO2 and sunlight.

At Joule, however, this process of photosynthesis has been modified in such a way that ethanol or components of diesel fuel can be produced from the carbon dioxide - and all of this without the use of biomass and the competition with food. In New Mexico, the construction of a demonstration plant has just begun, in which Audi e-ethanol will probably be produced by the end of the year. While using biomass such as maize, for example, 3500 liters of bioethanol can be obtained per hectare of cultivation area, with sugar beet the yield is 7000 liters, with the Joule method it is 75,000 liters. As Mangold reports, who was just laying the foundation stone for the demonstration plant, commercial production could begin in five years.

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