Waste biomass to renewable Hydrogen

Competitive Advantage:

• Preconditioned biomass (from raw biomass stream) can be obtained at very low cost;
• Electrocatalytic hydrogen extraction from pre-conditioned biomass is generally easier than water electrolysis;
• It is selective, delivers zero carbon dioxide emissions and can produce value-added organic products with potential to be used as precursors for plastic fabrication     

Impact:

• Competitive energy production by utilising waste to produce renewable hydrogen
• Alleviate global warming by reducing the carbon footprint
• Resource recovery and new materials 

Successful application:

• Development of novel ‘winged’ solar concentrator with tube reactor for biomass conversion with boost thermal efficiency up to 25% at 150C
• CFD modelling indicate that full scale system can produce ~0.45kg of 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural per day with average daily solar input 5kWh/m2

Funder:

ARENA project - A zero-emission tandem array for transforming biomass into renewable hydrogen

Researchers:

• A/Prof Jason Scott
• A/Prof Dawei Wang
• Dr Nick Bedford
• Scientia Prof Rose Amal

Highlighted publications:

• Ligand-Promoted Cooperative Electrochemical Oxidation of Bio-Alcohol on Distorted Cobalt Hydroxides for Bio-Hydrogen Extraction, ChemSusChem, 2021, 14(12), 2612-2620
• A winged solar biomass reactor for producing 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF), Solar Energy (2021), 218, 455-468

Collaborator:

• Origin Water International Pty Ltd;
• Apricus Energy Pty Ltd