INDUSTRIAL AND RURAL USE-CASES UNDERPINNED BY BIOMASS-BASED SOLUTIONS FOR CARBON REMOVAL, CHEMICALS AND RENEWABLE ENERGY - THE NET-FUELS PROJECT

This paper presents novel technologies that enable BIOCCS and BIOCCU solutions, developed in the NET-Fuels Horizon Europe project, and analyses their place in the current industrial landscape. The NET-Fuels configuration is designed to produce synthetic methane, hydrogen, biofuel, oxygen-enriched gas, and heat, while aiming at removing 80 gCO₂eq per MJ of fuel produced. This solution is powered by renewable energy, utilises residual biomass and generates biochar. The project is positioned within the objectives of the Clean Industrial Deal, presenting it as a central solution for decarbonisation, hydrogen production, and the realisation of circular economies. Given that one application of biochar is in agriculture, we extend the concept of industrial symbiosis to this specific case study by analysing the exchange of biomass from rural and peripheral systems to intensively equipped production areas, such as petrochemical districts and industrial parks, which can take full advantage of the outputs of the product system. Based on the preliminary results of the pilot plant, we illustrate the energy and material balances, which allow us to envisage and contextualise application scenarios, based on rural-industrial systems, including the identification of the services and functions that should be shared when implementing biomass-based carbon removal and biorefining technology solutions of the NET-Fuels variety in an industrial context.

The presentation was made by Gabriel Steffen from REACH Innovation, at ECOMONDO-2025 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnq2hjSZLSY).