UW to lead $10M hydrogen project with award from DOE

According to the Energy Information Administration, hydrogen is the simplest element. Hydrogen is also the most abundant element in the universe. Our sun, and other stars, are essentially giant balls of hydrogen and helium gases. Hydrogen occurs naturally on earth in compound form with other elements in liquids, gases, or solids. It is also a critical component to reduce emissions as the nation works to rescue its carbon footprint.

The Hydrogen Energy Research Center (H2ERC) in the University of Wyoming’s School of Energy Resources (SER) is set to lead a collaborative project integrating a produced water thermal desalinization technology along with autothermal or steam methane reforming (ATR/SMR) for efficient hydrogen production.

According to H2ERC Director Eugene Holubnyak, water is a very valuable resource in Wyoming and in the arid West. Hydrogen production requires water to produce so, if the partnering agencies are able to utilize water that would be normally considered a waste product from oil and gas production and turn it into a value-added resource for another energy-producing technology, they are effectively helping two different energy industries in Wyoming while conserving an indispensable resource.

While speaking on Sheridan Media’s Public Pulse, Director of Institutional Communications for UW, Chad Baldwin, said the goal of this effort is to create another arm of the energy industry here in the Cowboy State while also researching and testing new techniques intended to reduce the amount of water needed to create hydrogen. 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management recently announced that the project had been selected to negotiate a nearly $5 million award as part of the expanded “Clean Hydrogen Production, Storage, Transport and Utilization to Enable a Net-Zero Carbon Economy” funding opportunity with cost share among the project partners, bringing the total endeavor up to $10 million.

The initiative aims to continue advancement in hydrogen technologies that can improve performance, reliability and flexibility of existing and novel methods to produce, transport, store and use hydrogen in support of the nationwide goals of reducing greenhouse gas and achieving economy-wide net-zero emissions.

Over the course of two years, the project team will construct a containerized demonstration unit and test unit at a Williams-owned natural gas treatment and compression plant in southwest Wyoming. During this time, there will be some research into the technology at Los Alamos to resolve remaining challenges associated with integration.

Co-principal investigator on the project, Charles Nye, an associate research scientist in SER’s Center for Economic Geology Research, said this project will go beyond water conservation, and they hope to show that an old, traditionally inefficient process can, in fact, be very efficient when paired with the right technologies.

For more information on H2ERC, visit its website.