Austrian Institute of Technology

The AIT Austrian Institute of Technology is Austria’s largest research and technology organisation. Among the European research institutes, AIT is a specialist in the key infrastructure issues of the future. This makes us a leading development partner for the industry and a top employer within the international scientific community. AIT provides research and technological development to realize basic innovations for the next generation of infrastructure related technologies in the fields of Energy, Low-Emission Transport, Health & Bioresources, Digital Safety & Security, Vision, Automation & Control, and Innovation Systems & Policy.

Our role in the project

Our role as the Austrian Institute of Technology is to investigate potential applications and utilization of green hydrogen across various industrial scenarios. One part is the direct use of hydrogen as an energy carrier in industrial high-temperature applications such as furnaces. If there are technical challenges to the direct use of hydrogen, synthetic energy sources based on hydrogen, such as synthetic natural gas, are also being considered. Another way of utilizing green hydrogen is the use of it as a precursor for various chemical products such as methanol. These chemical products are based on syngas, which is to date mainly based on natural gas. In the course of the project, the production of green methanol, based on renewable hydrogen and CO2 will be investigated. We take a holistic view of these systems, including renewable energy production, hydrogen generation through electrolysis including storage considerations as well as different synthesis routes for hydrogen. These conversion chains will be dynamically modeled and simulated in Modelica/Dymola. With the inputs from the various project partners it will be possible to gain a comprehensive understanding of the these process routes and to develop ecological and economical competitive alternative processes.

Our impact in the region

The aim is to promote the integration of green hydrogen as a clean energy carrier and feedstock for industrial processes within our region and to identify decarbonization pathways for the energy intensive industry in Austria. The goal is to demonstrate to the industry how its processes can be transitioned to renewable and cost-effective alternatives to remain competitive and which infrastructure will be necessary.