CARBON-NEGATIVE BIOHYDROGEN FROM BIOMETHANE

By bringing together two best-in-class technologies, HiiROC and EPi are demonstrating how to produce carbon-negative hydrogen whilst removing atmospheric CO₂.

The Challenge: Cleaner Hydrogen for a Greener Future

Hydrogen has an important role to play in a clean economy, but current production methods are flawed, being either prohibitively expensive or emitting significant amounts of CO₂.  If we want hydrogen to be truly sustainable, we need a production method that removes carbon from the atmosphere instead of adding to it.

Enter DESNZ’ Hydrogen BECCS Innovation Programme, established to support development of innovative routes for low-cost hydrogen generation that combine bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, resulting in Net Zero emissions. Project lead, Environmental Power International Ltd. (EPi), developed a unique Advanced Conversion Technology to convert waste and organic matter that has already absorbed CO₂ through means of its Advanced Pyrolysis Conversion Technology into a methane-rich gas, whilst capturing carbon in a solid form.

The Solution: Biomethane to Biohydrogen

EPi teamed up with HiiROC, a British hydrogen company with a new, proprietary process for extracting hydrogen from methane rich gas, called – Thermal Plasma Electrolysis, or TPE for short.  Using a fraction of the electricity needed for electrolysis of water, TPE produces affordable hydrogen with no CO₂, also capturing the carbon as a solid.

The result? Combining the two processes bridges the gap between biomethane and clean hydrogen, offering a scalable pathway to low-cost hydrogen that is not just net zero but carbon-negative, taking organic matter that has absorbed atmospheric CO₂, converting it into biomethane, and then into hydrogen, thus closing the carbon loop.

A Real-World Impact: Powering a Sustainable Future

With the support of the H2BECCS Programme, EPi designed and modelled an integrated system using HiiROC’s unique TPE technology to convert EPi’s biomethane into a low carbon hydrogen.  HiiROC subsequently demonstrated their TPE process successfully converting a gas stream replicating EPi’s biomethane outputs into a high-purity hydrogen.  The numbers speak for themselves: carbon life-cycle analysis undertaken by leading, independent environmental consultants showed that 2.17 tonnes of CO₂ could be captured for every tonne of waste material processed in this way, delivering an overall net-negative impact on atmospheric CO₂.   If this pathway were implemented at one fifth of UK anaerobic digestion sites, we could potentially draw down almost 20 million tonnes of CO₂ every year.

Add to this the impact of avoiding nearly 1.4 million tonnes CO₂-e arising from the production of carbon black using traditional methods, the potential is enormous and cannot be ignored.

What’s Next? 

This is just the beginning. As industries, governments, and communities seek greener solutions, the role of renewable hydrogen will only grow. HiiROC and EPi are looking at a number of sites for potential rollout.  Our technologies are paving the way for a cleaner energy landscape, where hydrogen production is no longer a contributor to emissions but a solution for carbon reduction.

Are you ready to explore the potential of truly clean hydrogen? Get in touch today to discuss your project!

About HiiROC

HiiROC is a pioneering British company dedicated to accelerating Net Zero by delivering of the promised of affordable clean hydrogen. HiiROC’s proprietary process, Thermal Plasma Electrolysis (TPE), produces hydrogen using just one-fifth of the electricity needed for water electrolysis, and does not produce CO₂. Low-cost, scalable, and leveraging existing infrastructure, TPE makes clean hydrogen commercially viable without waiting for new renewables, pipelines, or storage.

Founded in 2019, HiiROC has quickly established itself as a leader in the clean hydrogen sector, with over 100 employees across development facilities in Hull, commercial offices in the south of England, and a research lab in Europe.  For more information, please visit: www.hiiroc.com

About EPi

Environmental Power International Ltd (EPi), a UK-based environmental technology company delivering revolutionary, zero-emission solutions to the global waste and energy challenge. Through more than two decades of R&D, EPi has developed and patented an Advanced Conversion Technology that transforms virtually all organic waste into clean energy, solid carbon products, and heat. It does this with zero combustion, zero airborne emissions and dependent upon configuration, a carbon-negative process.

Founded in 1999 by Mark Collins-Thomas, EPi remains privately owned and led by a tight-knit team of multi-disciplinary engineers. To date, EPi has operated five development plants across the UK and Turkey and is currently constructing its sixth-generation reference facility in West Berkshire, UK.

Contact: info@epienergy.com

About DESNZ

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero provides dedicated leadership focused on delivering security of energy supply, ensuring properly functioning markets, greater energy efficiency and seizing the opportunities of net zero to lead the world in new green industries. The Pure Pyrolysis Refined project is part of the Department’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio which provides funding for low-carbon technologies and systems and aims to decrease the costs of decarbonisation helping enable the UK to end its contribution to climate change.