Focusing on the DME distributed generator and DME hydrogen fuel cell power generation business that entered the smart farm

▲ A commemorative photo of the MOU is being taken at the demonstration facility of Biofriends Boeun Plant 1.

Smart farm technology is a scientific agricultural technology that grows fruits, vegetables, and special crops in a greenhouse while increasing productivity using IoT technology. In particular, it is a very useful agricultural technology in terms of increasing annual agricultural productivity through sustainable and efficient management by manipulating summer cooling, winter heating, and carbon dioxide fertilization through remote and automation.

BIO FRIENDS Inc. has won a government project from the Agriculture, Forestry and Food Technology Planning and Evaluation Institute since 2021, "Fuel Cell Array Energy Circulation for Greenhouse Facilities and Development of CO2 Resourceization Technology." And it promoted a project to collect and convert CO2 using CCU technology with Ganaan Agricultural School in Wonju, Sangji University, Jeonnam Environmental Industry Promotion Agency, Smart Green Energy, and Ulsan University to supply DME, an eco-friendly carbon-neutral fuel. In order to supply DME, an eco-friendly low-carbon fuel, as an agricultural fuel, hydrogen can be produced as a hydrogen carrier, connected to fuel cells, or supplied with electricity, cooling, and heating through a DME generator, and carbonic acid cultivation that collects a small amount of CO2 generated in this process. For the time being, fuel cells can be expanded from small smart farms (within 100 kW) to large smart farm power (within 1 MW) using DME generators, a more economical bridge power generation type, to build an agricultural power generation system.

On September 18, BIO FRIENDS Inc. signed an agreement with Sangsang Farm, Darare Farm, an agricultural corporation located in Boeun-gun, and Mijun Construction, a smart farm builder, for agricultural technology development and demonstration projects for facility green fuel cell energy circulation and CO2 resource. The agreement began in Boeun-gun to achieve the tasks of establishing a DME distributed power generation system, building a DME hydrogen fuel cell power plant, and increasing crop productivity by supplying DME, an eco-friendly fuel, to facility farmers.

▲ Photographs of the signing ceremony for the agricultural technology development and demonstration project conducted in the office building of Biofriends Boeun Plant 1

DME (dimethyl ether, CH3OCH3 molecular formula) is a low-carbon fuel that has low carbon content and almost the same physical properties as LPG, but has much less greenhouse gas emissions, and is also a fuel that has recently been in the spotlight as an eFuel. In particular, when manufactured from bio-materials, it can be used as a bioDME and can be used as a more eco-friendly energy source. If City gas supplies energy sources around the city center, DME will become a new clean fuel that can solve cooling and heating by transporting it to the tank lorry in the same way as LPG using LPG infrastructure. The global warming index of LPG is 3 to 4, and the DME is 0.3, which is very low in CO2. In particular, since DME can be used in combination with LPG, mixing DME in connection with the village-level LPG project can reduce greenhouse gases by more than 40%, making it a suitable fuel for the national greenhouse gas reduction plan in 2030.

BIO FRIENDS Inc. operates a factory with an annual production capacity of 5,000 tons and a factory with an annual production capacity of 10,000 tons in Boeun-gun, Chungcheongbuk-do. The agreement was signed with the agricultural corporations with a plan to use about 5,000 tons of them as clean fuel.

Cho Won-jun, CEO of BIO FRIENDS Inc., said that the goal is to supply carbon-neutral fuels to the southern part of Chungcheongbuk-do, including Boeun-gun, Okcheon-gun, and Yeongdong-gun, to expand them to new clean carbon-neutral fuels in the agricultural sector. Meanwhile, Chungcheongbuk-do plans to complete a demonstration plant in the second half of 2025 to collect CO2 from a cement plant in Danyang, Chungcheongbuk-do, in order to reduce greenhouse gases and promote the supply of eco-friendly fuels such as eMethanol and eDME. Based on BIO FRIENDS’ technology, a company composed of seven consortiums is also dedicated to technology development.

 
Clean fuels such as fuel and hydrogen using carbon-neutral renewable energy sources are expected to be sold worldwide after 2026, and BIO FRIENDS Inc. will lead these technologies and lead the supply of carbon-neutral clean fuels in the domestic agricultural sector.

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