HyTech’s purpose is to produce bio-hydrogen and methane from industrial wastewater.

Dr.-Ing. Elmar Brügging and Tobias Weide are leading a team focusing on employing dark fermentation to recycle industrial leftovers that haven’t been used energetically in the past. Since the beginning of the year, a comparable two-stage test facility has been running around the clock on the university’s Steinfurt campus.

The HyTech system is being used to treat wastewater from a brewery. The wastewater is transported from a storage tank to a tiny reactor containing hydrogen-producing bacteria via a pump. The plant creates hydrogen in the absence of oxygen and light, which is why the process is known as dark fermentation. “In addition to hydrogen, organic acids are becoming more prevalent during fermentation,” Juliana Rolf adds. In the laboratory, the research assistant is in charge of the system. The organic acids are exceedingly helpful, and in a second, bigger reactor, they are converted to methane and CO2.

“We usually use wastewater from the food sector at HyTech since it includes a lot of starch and sugar,” Rolf adds. They are provided free of charge to the study team. “We deal with waste streams,” Rolf explains. “In the future, we want enterprises to include dark fermentation into their wastewater treatment,” says the researcher.

The crew began constructing the test facility in June 2021. Since January, it has been operating constantly, 24 hours a day. Juliana Rolf, for example, keeps an eye on the plant’s operations and checks, among other things, which sorts of wastewater are best for producing hydrogen and methane. The trials are scheduled to go until July 2023. HyTech enables the production of sustainable, green hydrogen from previously mostly unusable leftovers.