We want to reduce the environmental and financial costs associated with producing green hydrogen by strategically harvesting light using a full solar spectrum to drive a chemical reaction that will ultimately produce green hydrogen and high-value chemicals as a by-product.
Our ultimate goal is to produce the Green H2 with a quantum efficiency of >60% using bioethanol and water as feedstocks, where the reaction is purely driven by solar energy in well-integrated photocatalytic and Infrared driven reactors, together with separation of products using an advanced membrane separation unit.
To achieve our objective, we’re going to harness the full solar spectrum (300 nm – 2500 nm) rather than part of the solar spectrum (300-1000nm) currently employed to apply biomass derivatives oxidation rather than sluggish water oxidation to substantially speed up the reaction kinetics and increase efficiency.
This will allow us to utilise the flow reactor principle to facilitate the mass transfer, which is beneficial for scaling up and minimising safety concerns, and to avoid the use of any critical raw materials as the catalysts so that we can reduce the material supply risk.
We also anticipate that the modules and workflows that we develop during the lifespan of the project will create crossover applications across multiple sectors, including the automotive, chemical and fertiliser industries. Additionally, we believe that companies in the food, textile, photography and rubber industries will be able to leverage the technology developed by the project.
Project Innovations
Catalysts for Green H2 Production
The catalysts that we're developing to co-produce Green H2 with a quantum efficiency >60% and high-value chemicals represent a step change in the hydrogen production process. Our project aims to produce green H2 at a cost comparable to fossil-derived H2, providing a gateway into a market worth €507 billion.
As such, the catalysts that we intend to develop will be of significant interest to organisations in fuel cell construction, H2 automotives, chemicals production and the fertiliser industry.
Thermal Catalysts for the Production of Green Acetic Acid and Other Chemicals
As our project generates a novel means of converting biomass into both energy and valuable C2+ chemicals, such as acetic acid or acetaldehyde, the environmental and commercial potential of the thermal catalysts that we develop is significant.
C2+ chemicals are employed by companies working across the food, textile, photography, chemicals, and rubber industries. In fact, we estimate that in Germany and France alone, the market for such chemicals reaches nearly different 6,500 companies.
Novel Helical Flow Reactor
We plan to design a novel helical flow reactor to capture the whole solar energy (300 nm-2500 nm), including annulus tube coated with visible light-responsive photocatalyst and inner tube coated with IR-responsive catalyst.
This innovation will respond to an already existing demand for low-cost and robust materials to absorb visible and infrared photons from sunlight within the material engineering sector.
More crucially, however, maximising mass transfer in a flow reactor for high reaction efficiency, is a process that can be extended to all chemical industries, thus saving energy and costs.
Separation units
The GH2 project will develop a lab-based continuous flow system of hydrogen and acetic acid cogeneration from bioethanol and water which will centre around a double-tube catalytic reactor with separation units.
For the effective separation of H2 from the reactor products, we plan to develop a polymeric gas separation membrane. As such, the separation units that we plan to mature will be of specific interest to organisations and businesses invovled in air separation, fuel cells and food processing.
Particle Coating
The particle coating system that we are designing will also have applications in the automotive, construction and IT industries.
As we intend to create a multifunctional coating that can protect and improve the performance of our catalysts, it will have many applications beyond the GH2 project, where contaminants can lead to underperformance or irreparable damage to components.