After about one and a half years of trial operation in Regensburg, the ORBIT reactor was successfully commissioned at its new location, a gas pressure control and measurement facility in Ibbenbüren (North Rhine-Westphalia) at the beginning of September.
In cooperation with the designetz project (www.designetz.de), the required hydrogen is now obtained from an electrolyzer which is operated with regeneratively generated electricity. With the addition of bottled carbon dioxide from a bioethanol plant, the ORBIT plant will now feed regenerative gas into the gas grid of the Tecklenburg region.
The reactor will be operated in this field test until the end of 2020 and its interaction with the electrolyzer and gas grid will be investigated. The scientific partners of the project will continue to support the reactor during this time.
Authors: FENES, Martin Thema