Federal funding to boost low-cost hydrogen production

The Rudd government last week announced $2.2 million to advance a revolutionary technology developed at the University of Wollongong (UOW) to produce low-cost hydrogen with a greatly reduced carbon footprint, through the Clean Technology Innovation Program.

The announcement was attended by the Minister for Regional Development and Regional Communities and Federal Member for Cunningham Sharon Bird; Member for Throsby Stephen Jones; UOW’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Judy Raper; and Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) Executive Research Director Professor Gordon Wallace.

The funding will help UOW’s Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI), the lead node of ACES, to work with UOW spin-off company AquaHydrex to drive R&D, scale-ups and testing for the technology, which allows sea water to be split into water and hydrogen to produce a clean and sustainable fuel source.

The ACES research team recently developed a light-assisted catalyst that requires less energy input to activate water oxidation, which is the first step in splitting water to produce hydrogen fuel, and solves the existing problem with sea water splitting of producing poisonous chlorine gas as a by-product.

“To think that in the not-too-distant future it might only take a few litres of sea water a day to power your home starts to change the way that we think about energy generation,” said Bird, who described the technology as “game-changing”.

Next-generation electromaterials could drive change in the region’s traditional low-cost, high-volume manufacturing to specialised high-tech production, while economically competitive, clean technology alternatives for energy production will help industry and business successfully move to a low-carbon future. Senator Carr said the Labor government’s investment in the research “could lead to new sources of energy, new products and new markets”.

AquaHydrex last year secured venture capital investment from True North Venture Partners - the leader of a $300 million venture capital fund that seeks to identify disruptive innovations and work with management teams to build companies for the long term in the areas of energy, water, waste and agriculture. Steve Kloos, a Partner at True North Venture Partners and Director of AquaHydrex, said AquaHydrex “appreciates the support of ACES and the Australian Government through its granting programs as it embarks on its commercialisation journey”.

Jones noted that the AquaHydrex technology “was developed by a research group funded by Federal Labor, in a facility that was built with an investment by Federal Labor and the technology will be advanced with a further investment by Federal Labor”.

He added, “Partnerships between researchers, government and the private sector, like this one, are one of the ways that we are building the economy of the future.”