RESEARCH TOPIC
Hydrogen is considered as a good energy vector to implement a greener energy future. Furthermore, it could be a precious by-product of recycling process that can be further transformed or collected to generate an added value instead of just burning it to produce process heat.
The project aims at developing a unique combination of technologies to efficiently produce, purify and store hydrogen. New innovative production of hydrogen will be investigated, together with its collection and valorisation in recycling processes, such as pyrolysis of biomasses. In fact, starting from several biomass sources, and using various techniques, involving pyrolysis, gasification, reforming, and chemical looping, waste can be recycled, and new chemicals or valuable gases can be produced at high temperature and low pressure, and used in a circular economy approach to make them profitable. The combined purification and storage of produced hydrogen will be explored at the solid state by an innovative approach using metal hydrides. It can be realized with the fine tailoring by elemental substitutions in selected alloys (i.e., target alloy will include Ti, Fe, Mn, Cr, Ni, V). In addition, a microstructure refinement into nanostructured materials promotes the hydrogen sorption in the alloys and its activation or reactivation in mild conditions of pressure and temperature. New compositions of nanostructured alloys will be explored, to efficiently handle the hydrogen produced by the previously mentioned approaches. Another key point would be to understand the cyclability and the poisoning resistance of selected metal hydrides towards possible contaminant gas released by the cited synthesis methods. Possible easy reactivation of the metal hydride would be explored to efficiently purify outcoming gasses and selectively store and capture hydrogen in the optimized alloy.
The unique combination of these technologies can support the development of a hydrogen-based economy, with improved performances in terms of efficiency, cost, and safety, and further push the economic exploitation of biomasses treatment and their valorisation in a circular economy, even for low amount of hydrogen released at low pressure, that can be profitably separated and stored.
ADDED VALUE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION
The launch of an international collaboration between UNITO and UNIZAR, in the frame of the UNITA alliance, will open the way to the exploration of new compositions of intermetallic compounds to form metal hydrides for the development of a unique combination of bio-based hydrogen production, purification and storage.
The partnership will combine skills on hydrogen purification and storage in metal hydride and their relative synthesis and characterization from UNITO, together with deep knowledge of hydrogen production and waste treatment technologies developed at UNIZAR. The unique combination of the two aspects will allow creating a small lab-scaled demonstrative system for hydrogen production, purification and storage. The project will allow a fruitful collaboration and transfer of knowledge between involved researchers and PhD/MSc students. The added value of this interdisciplinary collaboration is to further push material design and tailoring for the development of integrated system for hydrogen production and handling. Furthermore, the project will support incoming and outcoming exchange of researchers and students. An integrated setup will be implemented at UNITO or UNIZAR for the testing of a prototype reactor and hydrogen handling system for hydrogen production from biomasses and its delivery.
PROJECT GOALS
The project will aim firstly at developing intermetallic compounds with new compositions by elemental substitution, to finely match the characteristics of hydrogen production optimised at UNIZAR. Nanostructure metal hydrides will be compared with bulk alloys and their hydrogenation properties and purification characteristics will