SWEET-reFuel.ch Sustainable fuels and base chemicals for Switzerland

The SWEET-reFuel.ch consortium, funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE), focuses on developing sustainable fuel and chemical supply chains for Switzerland. The consortium consists of nine Swiss universities and research institutions alongside an industrial partner, taking a multidisciplinary approach to assess various aspects of sustainable fuel production and integration.

Main objectives and activities of the consortia include:

• Social, legal, and economic assessment of sustainable fuel and platform chemical production from captured or biogenic CO2 and renewable hydrogen, looking at both imports and domestic production.

• Life cycle assessment (LCA) and energy system design to ensure resilient and sustainable integration into Swiss transport and industry sectors.

• High Technology Readiness Level (High-TRL) research targeting policy, market readiness, and investment facilitation for sustainable fuel production.

• Low-TRL research focusing on improving technologies like methanol-based fuel synthesis up to laboratory demonstration level.

A special focus of SWEET-reFuel.ch is on making use of Switzerland’s domestic manure potential for sustainable fuel production while recovering nutrients. ETH-ESD contributes to this topic through Work Packages 1 and 6, investigating constraints related to manure utilization, such as legal, spatial, and acceptance aspects, while assessing ecological sustainability.