ECOMATES Final Conference: Power-to-X for a Sustainable Future
Five days of exchange at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik
From 6 to 10 July 2026, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network ECOMATES hosted its final conference “Power-to-X for a Sustainable Future” at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík. Around 100 participants from research and industry discussed the state of Power-to-X technologies, i.e. the catalytic conversion of renewable electricity into storable fuels and chemicals. FiW contributed a poster on dynamic, thermocatalytical methanol synthesis. The European Union funds ECOMATES under the Horizon Europe programme (Grant Agreement No 101072830).
Wind and solar power generation is fluctuating and weather dependent. When electrolysers convert this green electricity to produce hydrogen, the produced amount of hydrogen fluctuates over the day and the year. Chemical synthesis plants, however, are designed for steady-state operation. To run directly on fluctuating hydrogen supply, their reactors must handle load changes safely. The European Renewable Energy Directive RED III tightens this requirement: From 2030, the production of renewable hydrogen must correlate with the corresponding renewable electricity generation on an hourly basis.
This is where the FiW poster contribution comes into play. We presented a simulation model that resolves the dynamic behaviour of a methanol reactor in time and space. The model describes a fixed-bed reactor with an industrially established copper-zinc catalyst and calculates how temperature and conversion change along the reactor when the hydrogen feed fluctuates. Such simulations reveal operating limits and support the design of flexible plants before pilot plants are built. The FiW is conducting research into dynamic methanol synthesis as part of the B2MRaman project, funded by the BMWE (Grant Agreement 01IF23701N; Project Management: DLR IGF), and the BioMeSyn project, funded by the BMWK (Grant Agreement 13BDB60030; Project Management: VDI).
The five-day programme combined lectures by international researchers, contributions by the network’s doctoral candidates, an industrial session and a stakeholder roundtable. The poster session featured 20 contributions. Topics included catalyst design based on ab initio simulations and machine learning, electrochemical CO2 reduction and green hydrogen, membranes and cell design for electrolysers, as well as techno-economic and life-cycle assessments.
For FiW, the conference offered direct exchange with the electrolysis and electrocatalysis community, to identify common interests and knowledge transfer between electrocatalysis and thermocatalytic methanol synthesis, operated by the FiW.
More information on the ECOMATES network: www.msca-dn-ecomates.eu.