Machine producing green hydrogen from ethanol or water will be installed at the University of São Paulo (USP)

Researchers from the University of São Paulo (USP) will install a green hydrogen producing machine that will use ethanol as a raw material and produce fuel for three buses at the university

With global warming worrying everyone, green hydrogen comes in as a possible energy solution, as well as other sources of renewable energy, such as solar, wind, biomass and others. The fuel of the future is not found in large quantities in nature, having to be produced through technology, causing researchers from different sectors and energy companies to act together in search of the fuel. Today's highlight goes to the University City of the University of São Paulo (USP), which announced this Monday (2nd) that it will receive, within a few months, a machine producing green hydrogen fueled by ethanol.

Initiative at USP aims to produce green hydrogen from ethanol or water

According to Marcos Buckeridge, a leading scientist in the bioenergy sector and one of the coordinators of the Greenhouse Gas Innovation Research Center, in about six months the machine producing green hydrogen will be installed near the Olympic lane.

Buckeridge states that this is the first part of the planning and, soon after, three USP buses will be prepared that will be supplied with renewable fuel. The university researcher also points out that the great innovation of the initiative is that ethanol will be the raw material used to obtain the fuel, which will move the buses around the campus of Cidade Universitária, in Butantã, in the west zone of São Paulo.

The technological trail developed at USP can be considered a pioneer in the world, as it is a research that makes up a larger initiative. One of the center's main missions is to zero emissions in the sugarcane production chain or even make it negative in terms of emissions. Both from a scientific and technological point of view, hydrogen is only green when the raw material used at the beginning of the process is generated by a renewable source or biomass, as is the case with ethanol. Several vehicles from various parts of the world already use hydrogen, but these are fuels produced using natural gas.

In addition to ethanol, green hydrogen can be produced using only water

Another means of producing fuel of the future it's from the water. In Brazil, the company EDP Brasil plans to open its first green hydrogen production plant through water breaking in the state of Ceará by the end of the year.

According to Buckeridge, in the case of the machine producing hydrogen with ethanol at USP, there is still much scientific development to be done. The researcher explains that, in fact, the equipment is a ethanol reformer, which enters at one end and exits as hydrogen at the other. However, halfway through, it is necessary to control all the chemical reactions in the process well, in addition to choosing the right chemical elements so that the catalytic reactions take place efficiently and accurately. 

Hydrogen-producing machine will also produce carbon monoxide

In the case of hydrogen producing machine, the reactions must still produce carbon monoxide, which cannot be released directly into the atmosphere. According to Buckeridge, USP plans to use this carbon monoxide in vegetable gardens, bearing in mind that plants process carbon through photosynthesis.

In the case of the carbon generated by the machine, another line of research by the USP scientists shows that it is possible to bury it in areas close to the plants, up to 4 km deep. Thus, the carbon will react with other substances and become inert. As a result, the sugarcane chain may even end up with negative emissions in Brazil.

Source: new cane

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