Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (National Council of Research, Italy) (CNR), http://www.cnr.it, is a public research organisation; its duties are to carry out, promote, spread, transfer and improve research activities in the main sectors of knowledge growth and the application of this research for the scientific, technological, economic and social development of the country. The scientific network of the National Research Council of Italy consists of more than 100 Institutes, divided into 7 Departments. The Institute for Advanced Energy Technologies “Nicola Giordano” (ITAE), headquartered in Messina, operates within the Department of “Engineering, ICT and Energy and Transport Technologies”, being one out of a total of 21 research institutes grouped according to similar competencies and strategic priorities of the reference macro-area. ITAE develops and promotes energy-efficient, innovative technologies with low environmental impact through the use of fossil and renewable energy sources. The scientific expertise of ITAE is related to developing and optimising materials and chimica/technological processes for producing electric and/or thermal energy along with new fuels with specific reference to hydrogen. Approx. 100 people are employed at ITAE.
CNR-ITAE role in AMBHER
CNR-ITAE will lead the WP3 “Key materials and components for long term Hydrogen Storage”. CNR-ITAE will contribute to developing highly thermally conductive structured catalysts and their integration with membranes in a membrane reactor for ammonia synthesis. Specifically, CNR-ITAE will work on activating 3D printed metallic Periodic Open Cellular Structures (POCs) with commercial and novel catalysts to reach a detailed rationalisation of the adopted procedures. Identification and optimisation of coating and packing methods, chemical-physical characterisations and catalytic tests will be used to understand how the design parameters (thermal conductivity of the supports, PPI, void fraction, pore size and interconnections, thickness of the catalytic layer etc..) can affect the overall performance and the thermal behaviour of the catalysts for ammonia synthesis. CNR will also collaborate to develop an efficient scale-up strategy capable of ensuring the necessary quantity of catalyst (in powder form and granules shape) to validate the AMBHER membrane reactor technology at the demonstrator scale.
Website: http://www.itae.cnr.it