Biohydrogen from Wheatfeed

Wastewater Treatment Research Unit

Hydrogen Research Unit

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Following a successful laboratory based study funded by Carbon Trust the project is now entering a larger scale investigation based in industry.

Overall aim

To determine the potential of fermentation technology to produce either hydrogen biofuel or a hydrogen enriched methane biofuel from a flour milling industry co-product, for use in static applications or as a fleet transport fuel.The project will deliver a research scale plant facility to be operated under controlled conditions. The resulting data produced with this facility will be used for an analysis of the yields of the hydrogen and methane biofuels from a flour industry co-product (wheatfeed). This yield data will be used to perform an assessment of the net energy balance of the process and an evaluation of the process economics.

The main technical objectives are:

• To design and construct a hydrogen-producing reactor at a scale suitable for reliable continuous delivery of a particulate wheat industry co-product at the rate needed, and a second stage anaerobic digester to convert remaining organics to methane.
• To specify an experimental programme using these reactors to determine the continuous operating conditions giving maximum H2 yields with minimum water and nutrient addition.
• To operate the hydrogen-producing reactor and the anaerobic digester on wheatfeed according to the experimental programme to determine conditions for optimal H2 production and the nature of the outputs (methane yield, effluent for water recycling, solids as soil conditioner, microbiological content).

From these data, to produce a conceptual pilot scale plant specification with a net energy balance and outline economic assessment.

The project team will meet these objectives through designing, installing and operating reactors at the Rank Hovis Barry flour mill, South Wales.

Reactors are now being constructed by contractors and commercial monitoring equipment purchased. Infrastructure, wheatfeed, technical assistance and relevant data will be provided by Rank Hovis. Both Rank Hovis Ltd. and Hydrogen Solar Ltd. will assist the University of Glamorgan team in assessing the project results for technical and economic viability.