Call IDAE-MITERD "Incentive Programme 4: Basic-Fundamental Research Challenges, Innovative Pilots and Training in Key Enabling Technologies within the Renewable Hydrogen Innovative and Knowledge Value Chain Incentive Programmes"
File PR-H2CVAL4-C1-2022-0096

The VAL2H2 project, coordinated by Sorigué, will represent important technological advances in the whole hydrogen value chain: it will study renewable H2 production from bioresidues, its purification, storage and use in fuel cells.

The project is funded by the European Commission through the Next Generation Funds. At national level, the funds have been received through the Recovery and Resilience mechanism of the Ministry of Ecological Transformation and Demographic Challenge. The project started in January 2023 and it has a duration of two years, during which novel technologies will be demonstrated at pilot scale level, lab-scale experiments and software simulations. One of the strengths of the project is its collaborative nature, as it is carried out in consortium within six entities: Sorigué (coordinator),  Indox Energy Systems, IREC (Catalan Institute of Energy Research), CIEMAT, EURECAT y URV (Universitat de Rovira i Virgili).

The objective of the VAL2H2 project is the development of technologies that allow transformation of waste into renewable H2, as well as its purification, storage and use in the form of fuel cells. In a decentralized approach, the waste will produce H2 that can be used as fuel in waste transport vehicles with a local and circular use. The VAL2H2 project will address the problem of managing this waste by developing technological routes that will allow its recovery in the form of H2. To this end, there will be two innovative H2 production pilots that will study innovative pre-treatments combined with gasification and alcoholic fermentation technologies followed by low-temperature catalytic reforming. The waste used will be organic matter and pruning remains from a waste treatment plant located in Torredembarra, where one of the pilot plants will be built. Likewise, purification, storage and use of H2 studies will be carried out. For the enrichment and simultaneous separation of H2, highly compact systems based on the combination of catalysts, adsorbents and membranes will be studied. In the case of storage, simulations will be carried out with specialized software, as well as experimental studies with a prototype to evaluate H2 storage under different pressure and temperature conditions. Finally, new methodologies for the analysis of exhaust gases and the quality of H2 produced will be studied, and studies will be carried out with fuel cells as a specific case of conversion of H2 into electricity for use in waste treatment plants.