A team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has found a novel method to create hydrogen from biomass.

S Dasappa, a professor at the Centre for Sustainable Technologies and the director of IISc’s interdisciplinary center for energy research, served as the team’s leader.

There are two steps in the procedure. In the initial process, oxygen and steam are used in a new reactor to transform biomass into syngas, a fuel gas mixture rich in hydrogen. In the subsequent phase, syngas is converted into pure hydrogen using a locally built low-pressure gas separation machine.

It produces 100 g of hydrogen from 1 kg of biomass, despite the fact that only 60 g of hydrogen are present in 1 kg of biomass, thanks to both of these technologies, which were created in Dasappa’s lab. This is so because during this process both homogeneous and heterogeneous processes include steam, which also contains hydrogen.

This method is also carbon negative, making the creation of green hydrogen environmentally friendly. Solid carbon, which acts as a carbon sink, and carbon dioxide, which can be used in other products with additional value, are the two carbon-based byproducts.

The Department of Science and Technology of the Indian Government as well as the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy funded the initiative.