Sorigué leads three research projects on hydrogen and renewable energies to support the energy transition
Sorigué leads three research projects on hydrogen and renewable energies to support the energy transition
The three research projects are being carried out at the biomethane production plant run by Noguera Renovables, a Sorigué, Axpo and Torre Santamaría investee. This plant in Vallfogona de Balaguer (Lleida) processes bio-waste, at present around 73,000 tonnes per year, which generates biomethane that is subsequently fed into the gas grid.
These projects are led by Sorigué’s Innovation Department in association with various Spanish and international public and private organisations. The department currently has over twenty R&D and innovation projects underway in the quest for sustainable solutions which can be embedded across its business areas.
VAL2H2: from bio-waste to renewable hydrogen
The VAL2H2 project seeks to develop technologies for generating, storing and using renewable hydrogen from organic matter and bio-waste which is hard to recover such as pruning waste. Over the next two years, the initiative expects to produce up to 1 kg/h of hydrogen and experiment with converting it into electricity using fuel cells.
VAL2H2 targets technological innovations which are built into the entire hydrogen value chain from hydrogen production and purification to its storage. Software simulations will be run and prototypes designed to evaluate varying pressure and temperature conditions. It will also investigate potential uses of the by-products generated in sectors such as agriculture and energy production.
In this project Sorigué is working in a consortium with Indox Energy Systems, Eurecat, IREC (Catalonia Energy Research Institute), CIEMAT (Centre for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research) and Rovira i Virgili University.
Despoliplast: fuel from plastics
Noguera Renovables’ facilities are also hosting the rollout of Despoliplast, a project for recovering non-recyclable plastics.
The research will validate in a real-world environment catalytic depolymerisation technology which produces fuels from plastic waste. It is also exploring the feasibility of generating high-quality hydrogen from these fuels by steam reforming.
The equipment works with heavy fraction waste plastics, mostly from car dismantling. The project ends in December 2024 and its results will be crucial to build a large-scale system to cut the amount of non-recyclable plastics which end up in landfill and harness them to produce fuels and renewable energies.
Despoliplast is an initiative led by Sorigué in coordination with the Environmental and Industrial Applications of Catalysis (AMIC) group at Rovira i Virgili University.