The High Road to Hydrogen

Next-gen tech shakes up green energy industry

Universities are not just centers of learning and hubs of research and innovation. They are also agents of positive change in the world. Sparc Hydrogen—a joint venture between the University of Adelaide, Fortescue Limited, Sparc Technologies and Flinders University—is pioneering completely novel green hydrogen technology.

With development of a first-of-its-kind pilot plant for their technology underway, they’re on track to revolutionize the industry. Their innovative system uses a reactor that eliminates any reliance on electricity at the water-splitting interface, reducing infrastructure requirements to a fraction of what’s needed to make green hydrogen via conventional methods.

Decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors like steel, cement, and chemicals—which collectively generate over 30% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions—is one of the biggest barriers to meeting global net-zero targets. The proposed solution? Green hydrogen, a carbon-free, non-toxic, storable fuel that’s available in virtually infinite supply.

Not only does South Australia have the wind, sun, and land to be a leader in renewable energy, we also have the infrastructure and skills to be a world-class renewable hydrogen supplier. Hydrogen allows us to rethink how we generate and store energy, heat our homes, fuel transport, and decarbonize heavy industries such as mining and steel production.

However, the current process for producing green hydrogen—electrolysis—is prohibitively expensive, largely due to the high cost of electricity and equipment costs. With fossil fuel derived hydrogen still substantially cheaper to produce, there’s currently no financial incentive for existing users of hydrogen to switch—or for prospective users to go green.

Fortunately, alternative technologies are in the works capable of bypassing the electrolysis process altogether. In 2021, a South Australian research group led by the University of Adelaide’s Professor of Chemistry, Greg Metha, reported a breakthrough solar reactor technology for producing hydrogen using only concentrated sunlight, water and a photocatalyst in a solar reactor—called photocatalytic water splitting (PWS).

Photocatalytic water splitting (PWS) is an alternative method of producing renewable green hydrogen without electricity. In photocatalysis, the suns energy on a highly specialized photocatalyst material automatically splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. Sparc Hydrogen is pioneering reactor technology with the aim of commercialising PWS for the production of green hydrogen at large scale.

“We've not only proven that it's possible to produce hydrogen from water this way, but we've also amplified the catalytic reaction in our reactor, enhancing its performance," says Professor Metha. Sparc Hydrogen has tested a prototype reactor at the CSIRO Energy Centre in Newcastle, New South Wales, to evaluate the performance, efficiency, and durability of solar devices in real-world situations.

Now, the Sparc Hydrogen team is aiming to scale up this technology towards the goal of producing low-cost green hydrogen at the commercial level. This work contributes to the development of future green energy solutions and is an example of the University of Adelaide’s internationally regarded research being on a path to achieving a transformational outcome.

“We’re one of very few groups progressing this game-changing technology globally and the ultimate development of a pilot plant at the University of Adelaide’s Roseworthy campus will firmly establish our position as world leaders in PWS,” says Sparc Technologies’ Managing Director Nick O’Loughlin.

If all goes well and Sparc Hydrogen achieves scale-up of its reactor to pilot during the early part of 2025, they will quickly move to developing the larger commercial scale of what is being designed as a modular, scalable hydrogen production system suitable for a variety of use cases.

“We believe this pilot plant will be the only end-to-end hydrogen production system demonstrating photocatalytic water splitting in a concentrated solar field,” says Metha.

Sparc Hydrogen believes that taking a leading position in the emerging field of PWS will pay dividends through its first mover advantage along with the ability to form partnerships with leading developers of photocatalyst materials early in the game. International collaboration in this area is very strong: they’ve recently signed a collaboration framework agreement with one such leader – Shinshu University in Japan – and have materials from other groups under testing.

The University of Adelaide aims to increase its number of sustainability-focused research programs, projects and publications year-on-year to solve local challenges for global good.

In recognition of its breakthrough work, in August 2024, Sparc Hydrogen received a Climate Leaders Award in the Small to Medium Enterprise category from the South Australian Premier’s Climate Change Council. This award recognises how its research is contributing to South Australia’s aim of being a world leader in green energy.

Professor Anton Middelberg, Chairman of Sparc Hydrogen and the University of Adelaide’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Research), sees the project’s continuing accomplishments as a great example of what can be achieved when industry and academia work together. “The success of this partnership could deliver significant financial returns and global economic competitiveness for Australia. Collectively, we need to work together to get our behavioural, economic, political, and technological settings right so we can really move the needle on climate change in the right direction.”

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