100 years of the Fischer-Tropsch method

Invented 100 years ago and as relevant as ever: Fischer-Tropsch synthesis celebrated its 100th birthday at the beginning of May. As the process was developed in Mülheim-Ruhr, my home town, I attended the conference at the beginning of May. It was about how the legendary process can be used today. But it wasn’t just because Mülheim is my home town that I went back to my roots: I am now involved in the eFuel Alliance to promote the use of synthetic (renewable) fuels – and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is precisely about their production.

A century ago, the two chemists Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch succeeded in turning coal into liquid fuel – in principle, synthetic gasoline. The synthesis created a product similar to crude oil that could be refined. Industrial production was not long in coming: liquid fuels and lubricants were produced using this method.

Even today, the method was still a key process in any energy conversion, said Walter Leitner, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion, at the opening ceremony. At the Max Planck Institute in Mülheim-Ruhr – then named Kaiser Wilhelm Institute – the two researchers Fischer and Tropsch had developed the method. Anyone unfamiliar with the method will certainly know its waste product: it is the wax from which the tea lights are made.

MANY POTENTIALS

Today, the aircraft industry in particular is interested in the potential of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. This is because there is still no viable alternative to kerosene. At the same time, there is great pressure on airlines to become more environmentally friendly. As the starting material for the method does not necessarily have to be coal, it has great potential. For example, it is also possible to produce synthetic fuels from biomass and organic waste or renewable energies (wind, sun, water) in combination with CO2 from the atmosphere. This is exactly what the eFuel Alliance advocates: for those applications that cannot simply be electrified, there should be industrial production of synthetic, liquid or gaseous fuels. And this could also be distributed from regions of the world with more wind and sun, such as Latin America or Africa, and create new income opportunities in these countries. This was also demonstrated at the anniversary congress in Mülheim with participants from many countries including China and India.

At the moment, legislation in the EU still stands in the way of scaling up the method in mobility today. This is why no investor or entrepreneur dares to put money into large projects. The EU should move to enable new applications on a larger scale.

WIND POWER ONCE WAS EXPENSIVE TOO

The main argument put forward by opponents is the same as for many other things: It’s too expensive. Yes, at the moment it is expensive to produce synthetic fuels. But we know this from the renewable energy sector: generating a kilowatt hour of electricity from wind or solar power was also very expensive at the beginning of the energy transition. We remember the GROWIAN project in Brunsbüttel, where 1 kilowatt hour of electricity cost 5 Deutschmarks (around €2.50) and the operators said that wind energy could never be used commercially. Today, companies offer to implement wind farms in tenders, in some cases even without state subsidies; in Germany, a kilowatt hour costs 4 cents to produce, and in windy countries such as Chile, it costs just 1 cent.

So we need the right framework conditions: The Energy Feed-in Act brought about the turnaround back then. Today, we don’t necessarily need subsidies, but predictable framework conditions, particularly at EU level – such as the Renewable Energy Directive RED. Then we will have a chance to make energy usable in a climate-friendly way, even in areas where there is currently no continuous power supply.

So perhaps a second golden age is coming for the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.

Photos in this article: © Robin Bitter / MPI for Coal Research