Bio-based hydrogen production using methanol as storage and transport controller

The project will develop a technology to produce bio-based hydrogen and long-term well-functioning storage of hydrogen in methanol.

"Ongoing development projects for sustainable industry in northern Sweden are assuming that cheap renewable electricity is always available to produce hydrogen with electrolysers. However, the output of renewable electricity such as wind power tends to fluctuate and the electricity price is getting affected by the fluctuation. In addition, there is a lack in the number of new wind power farms, which can potentially be a show stopper for green industry development", Kentaro Umeki, says, Professor in Energy Engineering.

This project will try to solve these issues. First, we are developing a technology to diversify the origin of green-hydrogen, more specifically forest biomass-based H2 via gasification. As an alternative solution, we will contribute to enable the use of methanol as a safe and stable H2 carrier for ultra-long time storage and inter-continental transport. More specifically, we will develop a technology to make it cheaper and more efficient to extract H2 from methanol, which is currently a bottleneck for the use of methanol. A key essence for these technologies is electrification of chemical reactors (e-reactors), which can boost their efficiency and to reduce investment cost.