ELOBIO : the 100th EIC Pathfinder grant
The European project ELOBIO (Electrolysis of Biomass, visit the website), coordinated by IRCELYON, is the 100th EIC Pathfinder grant!
The long-term vision of the ELOBIO project (3,998 M€ over 4 years) is the large-scale production of green hydrogen from renewable cellulosic biomass, fully integrated in biorefineries with a circular bio-economy approach from the biomass supplier up to the final bio-products and green hydrogen. ELOBIO will design, build-up, test and improve a lab-scale prototype electrolysis cell at Technology Readiness Level 4, involving a selective electrocatalytic cathode for the hydrogen evolution reaction and an electrocatalytic anode capable of selectively oxidising biomass-derived compounds. In addition, considering that several emerging technologies rely on electrolysis assisted with an additional renewable source of energy, the concept of electrochemical promotion of catalysis, sonoelectrolysis and magnetoelectrolysis will be explored to further enhance the energy efficiency of the green hydrogen electrolytic production.
ELOBIO brings together a consortium involving researchers from three French CNRS labs (IRCELYON, LCH, IC2MP), two German institutions (KIT, Fraunhofer ICT), two Spanish universities (UCLM and UPM) and a Dutch research institute (DIFFER), covering a wide range of expertises, ranging from material science, electrocatalysis, chemical engineering, atomistic and macro scale modelling as well as life cycle analysis.
ELOBIO is granted from the European Innovation Council in the framework of the Pathfinder challenge “New routes for green hydrogen production”. ELOBIO is being conducted jointly with eight other projects of the same challenge that will help to reach the objectives of the European policy in terms of decarbonized energy.
