The CDTI Innovation seeks a Spanish company to collaborate with China in renewable hydrogen, green ammonia and synthetic fuels

The proposal aims to jointly develop integrated technologies for the synthesis, conversion and application of renewable hydrogen, green ammonia and synthetic fuels, aimed at sustainable mobility and industrial decarbonization. The objective is to address technological challenges related to efficiency, cost, emissions, response to changes in dynamic operating conditions, security and compatibility with infrastructures, connecting the production of these molecules and the previous processes with conversion, system integration and validation in application conditions. The project is articulated in three complementary lines: renewable hydrogen and green ammonia; low or zero carbon energy conversion; and Power-to-X and synthetic fuels.

International Consortium

The Chinese part of the consortium is promoted by the University of Tianjin, which is expected to lead it, with additional academic and industrial partners to be selected once the bilateral technical scope has been defined. Among the companies and entities with which this university maintains industrial collaborations are Weichai Power, Yuchai, CATARC, research entities of SINOPEC and CHN Energy. The participation of these organizations in the project is pending confirmation and will depend on its final scope.

In Spain, we are looking for at least one industrial company that participates as a central partner in technological co-development and that provides complementary technology and engineering capabilities for the development, integration and validation of solutions.

The search is aimed especially at companies with experience in any of these areas:

• Fuel production and technological development: renewable hydrogen, green ammonia, Power-to-X technologies* and synthetic fuels.
• Industrial processes and energy conversion: process engineering, catalysis, reactors, ammonia cracking, hydrogen purification, combustion, propulsion and thermal systems.
• Technological integration and validation: mobility, industrial systems, scaling, testing, safety and certification.

Proposed technology

The University of Tianjin provides technological capabilities in three complementary lines:

• Renewable hydrogen and green ammonia: development of anion exchange membrane (AEM) materials and electrolysers, integration of systems and synthesis of ammonia under moderate conditions of temperature and pressure.
• Conversion of ammonia to hydrogen: development of low temperature thermo-catalytic cracking technologies and electric field assisted decomposition at room temperature.
• Energy conversion and synthetic fuels: technologies for combustion and control of ammonia, hydrogen, methanol and other low-carbon fuels, as well as development of e-gasoline, e-diesel and fuel formulations for different applications.

These capabilities are oriented to possible uses in road transport, the maritime sector, aviation, gas turbines and the high-temperature industry.

The planned work plan will last 24 months and will include the definition of the use case and the system architecture, the co-development of the selected technologies, the integration and validation under representative conditions and the evaluation of the possibilities of industrial scaling. It is expected to obtain an integrated component, subsystem or demonstrator, accompanied by joint validation data and a roadmap for further development.

CHINEKA Programme

The proposal aims to be presented to the 8th call for R&D projects of the CHINEKA programme, which is scheduled to be launched in the last quarter of 2026.

CHINEKA is the bilateral program of technological cooperation and joint innovation between Spanish companies and entities of the People's Republic of China, managed by the CDTI Innovation and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST). Since 2005, it has been a collaborative framework to promote business projects aimed at the development of new products, processes and innovative services for the international market.

The overall budget of the project and the distribution between the Spanish and Chinese parties are still to be defined and will be agreed with the Spanish company that joins. Each country will fund its own participating entities in accordance with its national regulations. In the Spanish case, the application for funding will be processed through the applicable national instrument of the CDTI Innovation.

Contact

For more information on the technical scope of the proposal and the role of the Spanish company, you can contact Professor Jiaying Pan, Full Professor at the State Key Laboratory of Engines at Tianjin University, via email: jypan@tju.edu.cn.

For questions on this search for partners and advice on the CHINEKA programme, please contact the Spanish Office of Science and Technology of the CDTI Innovation in China: china@cdti.es.

CDTI Innovation

The Center for Technological Development and Innovation, CDTI E.P.E. It is the innovation agency of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, whose objective is the promotion of technological innovation in the business environment. The mission of the CDTI is to ensure that the Spanish business fabric generates and transforms scientific and technical knowledge into globally competitive, sustainable and inclusive growth.

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