Power-to-Liquids: A Sustainable Pathway for Synthetic Fuels

Abstract

Liquid hydrocarbon fuels remain to be the dominant energy carrier in air and cargo transport for the coming decades. Synthetic fuels produced by the Power-to-Liquid route are a promising alternative to biofuels and can contribute significantly to sustainable transport. Integration of high temperature steam electrolysis (SOEC) with Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) leads to more efficient conversion compared to water electrolysis, and is one way to decrease the economic hurdles for this process route. Conclusion 1. Product distribution is predetermined by the chain growth probability and shifted by the hydrocracker product distribution. 2. The excess heat generated by the Fischer-Tropsch reactor can be used for the SOEC, thus increasing the overall efficiency. 3. The SOEC process concept achieves an overall efficiency of 62.0 %, exceeding the efficiency of the comparable PEM case.