Private and freight transport driven by fossil fuels contributes significantly to climate change through the emission of CO₂. Synthetic fuels, so-called reFuels, can however also be produced from non-fossil carbon sources - for example, from biogenic residues in combination with the direct conversion of CO₂ and renewable hydrogen. With the "reFuels – rethinking fuels" project , the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) now wants to study processes that enable the mass-production of gasoline and diesel fuels from sustainably accessible raw materials such as plant parts. KIT also plans to study how such fuels affect the emission of pollutants and the function of vehicles and individual components. As early as this spring, a study conducted by the German petroleum industry associations had shown that power-to-liquid or power-and-biomass-to-liquid processes can provide quite competitive solutions.

The project is supported by the state government of Baden-Württemberg and the Petroleum Industry Association (MWV). Co-operating partners from the industry currently include Audi, Caterpillar Energy Solutions, Daimler, Eberspächer, Freudenberg Sealing Technologies, KS Kolbenschmidt, Mahle, Mann + Hummel, Porsche, Bosch, Rolls-Royce Powersystems as well as ENBW and MiRO.