After more than five years of work, the INTENT project, hosted by the Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano and funded by the European Research Council (ERC) with an Advanced Grant, has achieved its main objectives: to study the properties of new catalytic reactors with conductive structured interiors and to demonstrate their application potential in the intensification of key chemical processes for the energy transition.

A catalytic reactor is a device in which chemical reactions take place in an industrially interesting way and at an interesting rate, thanks to the use of special materials called catalysts. The INTENT research team, coordinated by Prof. Enrico Tronconi, has achieved significant results in this field of research, which will contribute to a cleaner and more sustainable energy future.

The project has already generated important spin-offs:

• the award of an ERC Proof of Concept Grant to the INSTANT project, which aims to exploit the results of INTENT for the industrialisation of an innovative compact reformer suitable for combined heat and power (CHP) systems for residential and small-scale use;
• the allocation of funds by the Ministry of Universities and Research to the BEATRICS (FARE) and PLUG-IN (PRIN 2020) projects based on the results of INTENT;
• the allocation of funds to the Horizon EU EReTech project and to an industrial research project focusing on the electrification of methane reforming through ohmic heating of structured catalysts, an innovative concept developed in INTENT;
• the realisation, in the laboratories of Politecnico, Bovisa site, of a pilot plant to test INTENT’s new reactor concept for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis on a representative scale, which is unusual in the academic field;
• 25 scientific publications in leading journals in the fields of chemical engineering, energy and catalysis (listed on the website), one patent and numerous invitations to present INTENT results at international conferences.