Biomass – that is, organic matter produced by plants, animals and humans – is a promising source of green hydrogen (H2) that will be needed in vast quantities in the future. Within the Federal Government’s Hydrogen Technology Offensive, three new dedicated research projects have now been funded to explore the generation of high-quality hydrogen using different biotechnological processes.

In BioHydroGen, the project team at the University of Resources Freiberg will engineer a compact reformer system for converting methane from sewage plants into high-grade hydrogen for use in the transport sector. In BioH2Ref, the working group led by the RWTH Aachen University will further develop the process of extracting H2 from biogas by means of steam reformation. And finally, in the BiDRoGen project, scientists from the Forschungszentrum Jülich will investigate economically viable ways of producing green H2 from solid biomass using the residues of wood pellets. A new gasifier technology will be developed for this purpose.

Demonstrating cost-effective and decentralised models of H2 production is a vital step in convincing industry to participate in Germany’s hydrogen economy. For example, the goal of BioHydroGen is to demonstrate the economic viability of turning waste into fuel for transport, revealing all the process steps involved along the value chain.

The three projects are part of the Bioenergy Research Network, a knowledge-sharing platform established by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Action (BMWK) to support the use of bioenergy in advancing sector coupling.