On October 12 and 13, 2023 the kick-off meeting of the Butterfly project took place in Petten aan Zee in the Netherlands. There, 10 project partners from seven European countries met and presented themselves and their tasks within the EU project. The IOB was represented by Nico Schmitz and Moritz Diewald.
The Butterfly project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under the auspices of the European Commission. The acronym “Butterfly” stands for the project title “Biomass Utilized To The Extended portfolio of Renewable Fuels with Large Yields”. The aim of the project is the utilization of organic residual raw materials for the production of fuels. In particular, the production of synthetic natural gas (SNG) and renewable dimethyl ether (rDME) will be investigated. These gases are also being investigated with regard to their use in sectors that are difficult to decarbonize, such as the transport sector or industrial sector.
The IOB’s task is to evaluate the industrial applicability of DME, particularly with regard to the steel industry. In the course of the project, the IOB will investigate and evaluate the usability of DME in the steel industry in cooperation with the CELSA Group. For this purpose, two test rigs are planned at the IOB’s technical center. For one test rig an existing combustion chamber will be converted so that it can be fuelled by DME and for the other rig a test stand for endogas generation will be newly constructed. In addition to the rig tests, single burner simulations will also be carried out. These will be validated with the help of the combustion chamber tests. For this purpose, measurement technologies, ranging from temperature, pressure and exhaust gas measurement to flame diagnostics, are installed at the test rig. These validated single burner simulations will then allow a validated simulation of an entire reheating furnace.
The kick-off meeting in Petten aan Zee
At the beginning of the event, a welcome was given by the project coordinator TNO, the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, and the project officers of CINEA. After the group photo at the beach, the project partners introduced themselves. This was followed by an introduction to the individual work packages by the responsible work package leaders, only interrupted by a delicious lunch at the beach bar. After the presentation of the work packages, the participants were guided through the laboratory facilities of TNO, which are located not far from the North Sea beach. In the evening the consortium met in Alkmaar for a nice dinner and further exchange.
On Friday, the last work package was presented and organizational and financial questions were answered. Subsequently, the first General Assembly meeting was held. Here, among other things, the newly built demonstrator of the project partner Torwash south of Nijmegen was determined as the target of the upcoming project meeting. We thank TNO for the organization and look forward to a successful cooperation with our European partners.
The consortium consists of the following 10 partners from seven EU countries:
- CARE FOR Engineering (IT)
- CELSA Group (PL, ES)
- DIMETA (NL)
- ENGIE (FR)
- ETA-Florence Renewable Energies (IT)
- LUT University (FI)
- Polimi (IT)
- RWTH IOB (DE)
- TNO (NL)
- Torwash (NL)
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission. Neither the European Commission nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 101118241.