United Utilities-led hydrogen-from-wastewater project bags £212,000 government funding

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE

A United Utilities-led consortium has won £212,000 in government funding for a feasibility study for a project that aims to produce sustainable hydrogen using biogas from wastewater treatment.

The project uses a technology developed by United Utilities’ partner in the three-company consortium, technology firm, Levidian Technology. The technology, one of a number developed by the firm known as Loops, splits methane into its constituent atoms: hydrogen and carbon.

The carbon is in the form of graphene which has the potential to boost applications in electronics, including sensors; solar panel efficiency; desalination; and DNA sequencing as well as many others.

The Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) awarded the funding to the consortium, through the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio.

The UK water industry produces 489 million cubic metres of biogas (impure methane) a year from anaerobic digestion. This biogas is primarily used to generate operational heat and power on site. It can also be purified to biomethane and injected into the gas network.

The phase-one feasibility study will analyse a number of biogas samples in a small-scale Loop system at Levidian Technology’s centre in Cambridge. The third member of the consortium, Jacobs, will bring expertise in lifecycle assessments, social value analysis, and commercialisation.

The Levidian research team will seek to confirm an integrated hydrogen separation system for deployment on a United Utilities site in the second, field trial phase of the project. Levidian chief, John Hartley, said the project “will lead the way to utilising LOOP to decarbonise biogas at scale”.

Jacobs' senior vice-president for Europe and digital strategies, Donald Morrison, said the project was: “a fantastic opportunity to help move our sector to low- and zero-carbon energy generation.”