BUTTERFLY · Biomass Utilized To The Extended portfolio of Renewable Fuels with Large Yields

The BUTTERFLY project will enable the flexible production of renewable DiMethyl Ether (rDME) and synthetic natural gas (SNG) from feedstocks of biological and non-biological origin. The project will demonstrate at TRL7 a flexible, efficient and low-cost process, combining indirect gasification with sorption enhanced DME synthesis (SEDMES) followed by methanation, to produce rDME and SNG. The ambition of BUTTERFLY is to propose and demonstrate a transformative biofuel production technology, allowing the use of renewable rDME and SNG in the energy and transport energy system, for hard to electrify sectors such as in shipping and steel industry. The BUTTERFLY project will generate 6 main innovations to the renewable fuel production sector: (1) achieving up to 97% carbon fixation in products (rDME and SNG) by using additional green hydrogen, (2) enhancing the biomass to fuel conversion efficiency by 15% compared to the conventional separated production technologies, (3) delivering a cost-effective technology: renewable fuel production cost will be 15-25 euros/GJ depending on green H2 addition based on a design of a commercial plant compared to reference values of 20-30 eur/GJ; the indicative production cost for rDME is 0.6-1.0 /kgDME that will allow higher profit margin, (4) ensuring a mid-term applications of rDME and liquefied SNG as renewable fuels for a wide range of off-grid use cases including transport, domestic, commercial and industrial heating; as well as production of SNG for gas grid injection, (5) allowing the valorisation of 3 different categories of feedstocks for production of renewable fuels: mix of lignocellulosic biomasses, solid industrial waste, black pellets produced from wet organic residues and (6) delivering rDME according to ISO 16861 standard to be used as fuel and in accordance with REDIII. BUTTERFLY will ensure the replicability and deployment of the project's solutions in EU, with the aim of reaching 250 units of various sizes by 2050.