A partnership funded through Ofwat\u2019s Water Breakthrough Challenge will kickstart Britain’s first initiative to produce fuel cell grade hydrogen using wastewater in Cambridgeshire<\/p>\n
Reducing carbon emissions<\/strong><\/p>\n A new partnership established through Ofwat\u2019s Breakthrough challenge is accelerating the UK\u2019s wastewater to hydrogen economy. How does the process work?<\/strong><\/p>\n Hydrogen technology company Logan Energy will supply and install the electrolyser used for the initiative. It will use treated wastewater through the electrolyser to create hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen will then be used within a Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactor (MABR) treatment process, targeting the reduction of nitrous oxide. Scaling up\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The project is being watched closely by water companies across the UK as it has significant potential to be scaled up. Other utilities partnering in the project and expected to share the learnings include Northern Ireland Water, Severn Trent, Scottish Water and United Utilities. Global wastewater hydrogen projects<\/strong><\/p>\n While the project is relatively new for the UK, these types of developments are already making waves globally. \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A partnership funded through Ofwat\u2019s Water Breakthrough Challenge will kickstart Britain’s first initiative to produce fuel cell grade hydrogen using wastewater in Cambridgeshire Reducing carbon emissions A new partnership established through Ofwat\u2019s Breakthrough challenge is accelerating the UK\u2019s wastewater to hydrogen economy. The ambitious push aims to reduce carbon emissions during the water recycling process […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/des-intl.com\/commercial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/des-intl.com\/commercial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/des-intl.com\/commercial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/des-intl.com\/commercial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/des-intl.com\/commercial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/des-intl.com\/commercial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":920,"href":"https:\/\/des-intl.com\/commercial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions\/920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/des-intl.com\/commercial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/des-intl.com\/commercial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/des-intl.com\/commercial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/des-intl.com\/commercial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe ambitious push aims to reduce carbon emissions during the water recycling process while generating green hydrogen and oxygen through an innovative integrated electrolyser system.
\nHydrogen infrastructure business Element 2 plans to purchase hydrogen produced by the new electrolyser at Anglian Water\u2019s Milton Road, Cambridge water recycling site and transport it to Element 2\u2019s network of hydrogen refuelling stations around the UK.
\nIt\u2019s estimated that up to 91kg of fuel cell grade hydrogen that\u2019s suitable for use with hydrogen vehicles will be generated each day when running at 100 per cent from July 2023.<\/p>\n
\nThe MABR habitat creates an ideal environment to support a resilient biofilm that can withstand hydraulic shock loads and process upsets, with the ability to absorb and consume carbon and nitrogen-based pollutants.
\nProduced hydrogen could be facilitated for different uses, in fuel cells, to displace diesel generators, or for local transport application.<\/p>\n
\nBy investigating using treated wastewater, the project aims to tackle resource recovery, without additional demand for drinking water resources and without compromising the water resilience needed to face climate change.
\nGiulia Pizzagalli<\/a>, innovation projects manager at Anglian Water said the project will help to support the delivery of the sector\u2019s drive to Net Zero by 2030 by helping to \u201creduce nitrous oxide emissions, increase the energy efficiency of wastewater treatment processes and generate a new renewable energy source via electrolysis\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nSiemens Energy announced earlier this year that it was to start the production of hydrogen electrolyzers in Berlin, Germany. The project aims to use solar cells to capture energy that will power the electrolysis of wastewater, producing hydrogen gas. The hydrogen produced will be used for fuel cells and the energy will also be stored in hydrogen tanks for future use.\u00a0Australia has also been making progress in wastewater-to-hydrogen production. In Victoria, a company named AquaHydrex designed a smart anaerobic digester producing green hydrogen from wastewater, which can then fuel transport. This process involves the partial removal of water and organic matter by anaerobic digestion, which produces biogas. Biogas is then converted into green hydrogen that can be stored and used for various purposes.Finally, in California, a wastewater plant in the city of Ontario partnered with Air Products and Chemicals to develop a hydrogen facility. Running on a 4 MW electrolyser, the facility can extract hydrogen gas from the facility’s wastewater. As a result, it is estimated that Ontario will have the potential to reduce 9,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.<\/p>\n