Research to make cost-effective hydrogen source from distilleries and agriculture waste

Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and Malaysian oil and Petronas Gas Company have come together on a research project. Both will collaborate on the £1 million research project. It aims to advance techniques that use thermochemical reactions to produce hydrogen from biomass and other waste materials.

The project will also focus on finding solutions to address scalability and storage issue with hydrogen. These are some of the main barriers in wider use of hydrogen and to promote adoption globally. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers reported that the work will initially focus on utilising the estimated 4m tonnes of waste and by-products created by distilleries in the UK, and the approximately 127m tonnes of agriculture waste generated annually in Malaysia. The academic team will also explore the use of depleted oil wells for pure hydrogen storage, without the need to add natural gas for stability.

“Hydrogen is seen as a key contributor to the energy transition, but current production and storage methods face multiple scalability challenges,” said Professor Raffaella Ocone, research leader at the Heriot-Watt Institute of Geoenergy Engineering in a news report given by the imeche.org.

She further explained, “Biomass and biomass-derived fuels can be used to produce hydrogen sustainably, and our multidisciplinary team is uniquely placed to address the current barriers by bringing together engineers,

scientists, geologists, and industry partners.

Our research will initially develop new technologies to process and create hydrogen from different biomass waste products, completing a circular economy pathway and producing higher volumes than those currently achievable from existing production methods.”