Xiao­jun Liu is a senior lec­tur­er and research sci­en­tist at the UTC-TIMR lab­o­ra­to­ry. He coor­di­nates the Obi­wan project for UTC, launched in Octo­ber 2024 as part of Inter­reg France-Wal­lo­nia-Flan­ders, fund­ed by the Euro­pean Region­al Devel­op­ment Fund (ERDF) and aimed at encour­ag­ing cross­bor­der col­lab­o­ra­tion in both research and indus­tri­al development.

With a bud­get of €2.59 mil­lion, this project – aimed at trans­form­ing organ­ic waste streams into advanced chem­i­cals- involves the Hauts-de-France Region, and the Bel­gian Wal­lo­nia and Flan­ders Regions. “One of the main recov­ery tech­niques cur­rent­ly used is methani­sa­tion. This involves anaer­o­bic diges­tion, a bio­process that pro­duces bio­gas con­tain­ing methane (CH4) and CO2. In stan­dard indus­tri­al prac­tice, the CO2 is iso­lat­ed and the methane is either inject­ed into the grid or burned to pro­duce ener­gy. With Obi­wan, we want to recov­er not only the methane but also CO2, which will be con­vert­ed into high added-val­ue prod­ucts,” explains Xiao­jun Liu. Led by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ghent, Obi­wan involves not only UTC but also the CNRS in Lille and the com­pa­ny Certech in Belgium.

What is UTC’s role in Obi­wan? ‘UTC is recog­nised for its exper­tise in methani­sa­tion. We are essen­tial­ly involved upstream, with the aim of pro­duc­ing a sta­ble bio­gas flow and com­po­si­tion. This is because down­stream part­ners need to be sure that the bio­gas sup­plied is sta­ble so that it can be con­vert­ed into methanol (CH4O). How­ev­er, there can be sea­son­al vari­a­tions in the bio­mass col­lect­ed, which affect both the quan­ti­ty and qual­i­ty of the bio­gas. The pro­por­tions of methane and CO2 can there­fore change. Our role is to car­ry out exper­i­ments and pro­duce mod­els to ensure sta­ble pro­duc­tion under vari­able input con­di­tions. A the­sis, co-super­vised by Thier­ry Ribeiro, Stéphane Mot­telet, André Pauss (UTC), Lau­ra André (Uni­LaSalle) and myself, will soon begin to strength­en the team work­ing on the Obi­wan project,” he emphasises.

And what about the oth­er part­ners? “In bio­gas, there may be oth­er impu­ri­ties besides methane and CO2, such as hydro­gen sul­phide (H2S), which is high­ly tox­ic. This is where Certech comes in, spe­cialised as it is in purifi­ca­tion process­es, among oth­er activ­i­ties. The CNRS and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ghent, mean­while, are using this puri­fied bio­gas to test var­i­ous cat­alyt­ic and ther­mal process­es for con­vert­ing the gas into bio­methane, which can be used as a fuel, but also to recov­er sol­id car­bon for appli­ca­tions such as raw mate­r­i­al for tyres, for exam­ple,” con­cludes Xiao­jun Liu. 

MSD