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February 5, 2025

Hynoca Marolles toward hydrogen production: Final stage for design Hynoca Alkmaar

Categories: News

By Bob Busser, Hydevco

From Waste to hydrogen production


After an intensive period, the Hynoca Strasbourg test facility provided all the information needed to build the Hynoca Marolles single-line demonstrator. This plant is located near the Haffner Energy office in Vitry-le-François. The plant was commissioned last May and in July the test results showed the expected and required Hypergaz (specific synthesis gas) composition from the process. This opened up the next stage of converting the Hypergaz into 5.0 quality hydrogen.
During October, the final equipment will be installed and commissioned to start producing hydrogen from Hypergaz in November 2024. 

Once we have reached this milestone, we will be able to finalise the design of the Hynoca Alkmaar plant, which will be a two-line project. The Hynoca technology uses only 18% of the electricity consumption of an electrolyser. In the Hynoca Alkmaar project we will continue to optimise efficiency, but we will also work towards using non-woody biomass. Non-wood biomass also contains hydrocarbons. This can be the waste from a biogas plant, the so-called digestate. The already tested digestate, the remaining waste from an anaerobic digester, still contains a lot of long-chain hydrocarbons for our process.

The digestate is often exported, which involves costs and, above all, emissions from transport. Other biomass waste from the area, such as flower bulb waste, sludge from HVC and other material that GP Groot pre-treats, is under investigation.

 

Biomass as an alternative to the electrolyser

After a first thermal step the biomass is brought to an optimal moisture content followed by steps bringing it up to about 550ᵒC. At this point the solid fraction, forming biochar, and a gaseous fraction are separated. The gas will get several cleaning steps before it goes in a water-gas-shift process to increase the content of Hydrogen in the gas. At this stage the Gas obtained  is cleaner than Natural gas. In a last step the gas will go though a Pressure Swing Adsorption to obtain the 5.0 quality of hydrogen. The biochar will function as a Carbon Sink preventing the carbon to oxidise into CO 2 . This results in the avoidance of 12 kg of CO 2 per produced kg of hydrogen in compare to 2 kg of CO 2 created per produced kg of Hydrogen with an electrolyser , when the electrolyser uses 100% of green electricity.

 

Visit the project website at www.reformers-energyvalleys.eu and follow our social media page on LinkedIn for latest updates, or get in contact at info@reformers-energyvalleys.eu