IISc develops technology for green hydrogen from biomass

An innovative technology to produce hydrogen from biomass has been developed by a team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). The team was led by S Dasappa, Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Technologies, and Chair of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Energy Research at IISc, says a press release from IISc.

India uses nearly 50 lakh tonnes of hydrogen for various processes in different sectors, and the hydrogen market is expected to grow substantially in the coming years, says Dasappa. “But most of the hydrogen we currently use comes from fossil fuels through a process called steam methane reforming route.” Now, his team has found a way to extract green hydrogen from biomass, a renewable energy source.

The process consists of two steps. In the first step, biomass is converted into syngas – a hydrogen-rich fuel gas mixture – in a novel reactor using oxygen and steam. In the second step, pure hydrogen is generated from syngas using an indigenously developed low-pressure gas separation unit. Both these technologies, developed in Dasappa’s lab, ensure that this process is a highly efficient method of generating green hydrogen – it produces 100 g of hydrogen from 1 kg of biomass even though only 60 g of hydrogen are present in 1 kg of biomass. This is because in this process, steam, which also contains hydrogen, participates in both homogeneous and heterogeneous reactions [emphasis added] (in homogeneous reactions, reactants are in a single phase whereas in heterogeneous reactions, the reactants are in two or more phases).

The production of green hydrogen using this process is environmentally friendly for another reason – it is carbon negative. The two carbon-based by-products are solid carbon, which serves as a carbon sink, and carbon dioxide, which can be used in other value-added products.

“This indigenous technology is a step towards achieving the goal of Atmanirbhar Bharat of the Honourable Prime Minister,” says Dasappa. The technology also dovetails nicely with the National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap, an initiative of the Government of India that aims to promote the use of hydrogen as a fuel and reduce dependence on fossil fuels, he adds.

The project was supported by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India. The team also acknowledges the support of the Indian Oil Corporation Limited in scaling up the technology to produce 0.25 tonnes of hydrogen per day for use in hydrogen-powered fuel cell buses.

Dasappa believes that green hydrogen could be used in several other industries as well – in the steel industry to decarbonise steel, in agriculture to manufacture green fertilisers, and in many sectors currently using hydrogen produced from fossil fuels.  “Moreover, the same platform can be used for methanol and ethanol production,” he adds.

 India’s green hydrogen market to be $8 billion by 2030: Niti Aayog 

 

India’s government think-tank, Niti Aayog, in collaboration with the Rocky Mountain Institute, USA, has come out with a report on ‘Harnessing Green Hydrogen Opportunities for Deep Decarbonisation in India’, in which it says that the Indian market for green hydrogen would be $ 8 billion, and electrolyser market, $ 5 billion by 2030. 

Here are excerpts from the report:  

• From a price parity basis alone, green hydrogen’s share of this demand could grow from 16% in 2030 to almost 94% by 2050. This translates to an implied cumulative electrolyser capacity demand of 20 GW by 2030 and 226 GW by 2050, promising a sizeable opportunity for indigenous manufacturing of a global emerging energy technology. The cumulative value of the green hydrogen market in India could be $8 billion by 2030 and $340 billion by 2050.  

• Electrolyser market size could be approximately $5 billion by 2030 and $31 billion by 2050. Adoption of green hydrogen will also result in 3.6 giga tonnes of cumulative CO2 emissions reductions between 2020 and 2050.6 Energy import savings from green hydrogen can range from $246 billion to $358 billion within the same period. 

• The government should create an interdisciplinary Project Management Unit (PMU) with globally trained experts. The PMU should dedicate full-time resources to effectively implement the mission. At the policy level, an inter-ministerial mechanism should be instituted to coordinate across the efforts of the various ministries and departments required to achieve the target of the mission. 

• The roadmap should also identify a timeline and scale of manufacturing support for electrolysers. India may aim for 25 GW of electrolysers by 2030, while also investing $1 billion in R&D to catalyse the development of commercial green hydrogen technologies across the value chain. Radically improving the speed of regulatory clearances coupled with preferential treatment in public tenders will help catalyse local manufacturing. Grand challenges, public-private venture capital and financing test bench infrastructure could be part of the R&D investments.