Meyer Neptun Engineering, Leibniz Institute partner up on climate-neutral fuels

Meyer Neptun Engineering, a newly founded startup focused on green innovations and part of Germany’s shipbuilder Meyer Group, plans to cooperate with the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis (LIKAT Rostock) to explore climate-neutral fuels.

For this purpose, Meyer Neptun Engineering supports a project proposal of LIKAT Rostock to the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. The aim is to establish and operate a development platform for fuels from renewable energy and unavoidable CO2 in the so-called power-to-liquid process.

As explained, the platform will be available for further research work not only with LIKAT but also with other research institutions and companies, in order to work in productive cooperation in a targeted manner on environmentally and climate-friendly mobility.

„We are thus further committing ourselves to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and want to jointly strengthen the maritime economy here locally. For us, the cooperation with LIKAT is an important step towards climate-neutral shipping with power-to-liquid fuels,“ Manfred Müller-Fahrenholz, Managing Director of Meyer Neptun Engineering, commented.

Together with the shipyards of the Meyer Group, Meyer Neptun Engineering will test the fuels generated in the research project under real conditions on board.

The goal is to make climate-neutral and sustainable solutions ready for the market for different types of ships, which Meyer Neptun Engineering will work on in the future.

„With our versatile maritime research and development facilities and projects, we form a true playground for engineers and technicians from a wide range of disciplines. To this end, we continue to look for people who want to join us in making shipping climate-neutral,“ Malte Poelmann, Managing Director of Meyer Neptun Engineering, added.

„We are convinced that with the planned PtL platform, together with Meyer Neptun Engineering, we will contribute to emission-free shipping,“ Denise Heyl, project manager of LIKAT, said.

Power-to-liquid (PtL) is based on the conversion of renewable energy into liquid fuels and chemicals such as methanol using CO2 that is already in the atmosphere. Thus, climate-neutral fuels with high energy density can be produced for use in ships or aircraft.

Earlier this year, Germany’s government announced a funding call for the construction and operation of a development platform for PtL fuels.

Under the plan, BMVI will invest a total of €1.54 billion ($1.8 billion) in renewable fuels between 2021 and 2024.