Hydrogen

South Australia will launch exports of green hydrogen to Indonesia later this year with works commencing on a multi-million-dollar production facility being developed in the northern suburbs of Adelaide.

Australian scientists have developed a new method to make hydrogen directly from seawater, describing the technology as a critical step towards a truly viable green hydrogen industry.

The European Commission has presented the final version of its new rules for green hydrogen, with looser requirements to qualify hydrogen as “green.”

A distribution agreement between Europe-based Enermech and Wolftank Group will see mobile hydrogen refuelling stations installed at remote mine sites and industrial sectors across Australia and New Zealand.

Honda has revealed a new hydrogen strategy, while Air Liquide and TotalEnergies have announced a new hydrogen joint venture.

Australian renewable hydrogen company Infinite Green Energy is targeting first commercial-scale production of green hydrogen by the end of 2024 after finalising the $8 million (USD 5.65 million) acquisition of an 11 MW solar farm in Western Australia and penning its first offtake agreement for the project.

The hydrogen stream: ZeroAvia tested its new 19-seat hydrogen-powered aircraft, Chinese scientists unveiled new tech to promote bubble removal in electrolysers, and Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology researchers claimed that the most efficient hydrogen production systems are based on waste heat.

Japan’s largest oil company, Eneos, has opened a green hydrogen demonstration plant at Bulwer Island in Brisbane. While the scale of the project is relatively small, producing just 20 kilograms of green hydrogen a day, Eneos Senior Vice President Yuichiro Fujiyama says the company will expand the project’s scale “in near future.”

A Victorian-based startup which claims to have developed a hydrogen enhancement kit that injects hydrogen into existing diesel engines to reduce diesel use, has begun the production of 10 commercial-ready systems. It will do field testing with the systems on sites of potential customers.

Researchers from the University of Adelaide, along with international partners, have successfully used seawater with no pre-treatment to produce green hydrogen. The team did this by introducing an acid layer over the catalysts in situ. “We have split natural seawater into oxygen and hydrogen with nearly 100% efficiency… using a non-precious and cheap catalyst in a commercial electrolyser,” University of Adelaide’s Professor Shizhang Qiao said.