The government has revealed the successful projects through the second phase of its innovation programme supporting hydrogen BECCS – bioenergy with carbon capture and storage – technologies.
In the competition’s first phase, £5mn was awarded for scoping and development work spread over 22 organisations. The maximum grant was £250,000, supporting the development of project proposals aimed at delivering commercially viable innovative hydrogen BECCS technology solutions across three categories of feedstock pre-processing, gasification components, and novel biohydrogen technologies.
The second phase was open to all projects that successfully completed the first phase, with six organisations awarded a share of £26.2mn for project demonstrations.
Compact Syngas Solutions is looking to demonstrate the use of water, instead of chemicals, as a way of removing CO2 from the gas mixture in syngas. This would then mean the CO2 can be captured, stored and sequestrated, or purified and then sold off to use in applications where CO2 is used. Reducing the CO2 content in the syngas will also ensure it is easier to make hydrogen.
KEW Projects, meanwhile, is set to showcase carbon capture and fuel cell vehicle grade hydrogen production at its advanced gasification facility. It wants to show high efficiency hydrogen and CO2 separation through pressurised water absorption. Advantages of this process include how it can reduce energy consumption and avoid the use of chemicals, paving the way for very effective energy performances and significantly improved cost effectiveness for producing hydrogen from non-recyclable waste or biomass.
CATAGEN is aiming to build on its work in the first phase, where it developed an initial prototype “ClimaHTech BIOHGEN reactor, as it works to apply its proprietary recirculating gas reactor technology to develop a cost-effective method for producing low carbon biohydrogen. Elsewhere, Environmental Power International has developed a Pure Pyrolysis technology for the treatment of waste and other organic feedstocks. It carried out extensive laboratory tests to modify the process for hydrogen production and carbon capture during the first phase of work and will now look to demonstrate the solution at a site near Ipswich.
The H2Boost consortium, led by the Biorenewables Development Centre, is exploring producing biohydrogen by integrating an advanced oxidation and enzymatic pre-treatment of underused bio-based feedstocks for conversion to biohydrogen through dark fermentation. This is combined with downstream processing of by-products through microbial CO2 capture and storage. Finally, United Utilities Water is adopting biogas from the treatment of wastewater and using it as feed material to the Levidian LOOP process. This will produce hydrogen and graphene – one a source for resource efficient and continuous fuel, the other a means of carbon capture and storage.
