Mission The Australian Hydrogen Research Network (AHRN) is the community of researchers and interested stakeholders supporting the emerging hydrogen industry. We foster excellence in hydrogen-related research through an ongoing program of seminars and knowledge-sharing activities. By providing thought leadership, advocacy, and research tools, the AHRN offers its members domestic networking opportunities as well as access to international collaborations.
Welcome to our first newsletter of 2022. This year promises to be a great one for the AHRN as we move forward in developing our HyResearch online collaboration tool, continuing our program of online seminars and working towards the first Australian Hydrogen Research Conference early 2023.
As we start the new year, we are keen to get your thoughts on where the AHRN may head, and how you can contribute. All on the AHRN database will receive an invitation to participate in a survey.
As last year, we intend to hold online seminars each month. Our first one addresses research for hydrogen export, something that was not covered too well last year.
Confirmed speakers for our first seminar of 2022 are:
• Hydrogen Liquefaction: A Review of the Fundamental Physics, Engineering Practice and Future Opportunities
Dr Saif Al Ghafri, University of Western Australia
• Operational Challenges of Liquid Hydrogen Production and Storage
Dr Arman Siahvashi, University of Western Australia
• Hydrogen Energy Export using a powder
Associate Professor Mark Paskevicius, Curtin University
• No Hydrogen without Carbons: advanced carbon materials for the hydrogen economy
Jacob Martin, Curtin University
All those who have registered with the AHRN will receive an invitation to attend this seminar. If you are not yet on our database and wish to attend, please send your details to the AHRN admin via Hydrogen_Mission@csiro.au
Seminars in preparation for March are (a) HyResearch development phase 2 and (b) a review of the global/country assessment reports being produced through the international R&D collaboration program.
Thanks to Peter Grubnic, Furat Dawood and all those who contributed to getting this live before the end of 2021. If you have not yet submitted your project for inclusion in HyResearch please submit this directly to:
Peter Grubnic: peter.grubnic@futurefuelscrc.com 0414 731 587
Furat Dawood: furat.dawood@murdoch.edu.au
Or myself: A.Dicks@griffith.edu.au
We will be working to expand the utility of HyResearch through the year. More details to follow.
We are pleased to announce that Prof Ken Baldwin from ANU has agreed to chair the first Australian Hydrogen Research Conference to be held in Canberra early 2023. Current members of the organising committee are: Andrew Dicks (Griffith University), Ema Frery, Dan O’Sullivan and Daniel Laing (CSIRO), Andrew Feitz and Akleks Kalinowski (Geoscience Australia), Nagsgud Furiyzu (Newcastle University), Paul Medwell (University of Adelaide), Bahman Shabani (RMIT) and Siva Karuturi (ANU).
The main aim of the conference is to bring together the Australian research community to share in their work and engage in networking activities. Covering 2 – 3 days the conference will feature guest speakers from overseas.
We are to establish an advisory group for the conference of representatives from Industry and other stakeholders to assist with developing the conference program. All AHRN members will be contacted in the next month for help in this activity.
CSIRO has been undertaking a program of work in hydrogen to enhance research connectivity and collaborations in areas of mutual interest with international partners. This international collaboration program is being led jointly with the Australian Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources (DISER). The program includes the publication of 10 country reports on hydrogen RD&D. The country reports are currently being finalised with aiming for publication by the end of February.
The purpose of the country reports are to a) inform our engagement strategy over the next 2 years of the program, and b) to provide a resource for Australian researchers to better understand the international hydrogen research landscape and focus their engagements overseas.
New ARC-funded Projects were announced at the end of 2021. Congratulations to those who were successful in securing research funds:
• Dr Alexander Klimenko (UQ) - General systems modelling of hydrogen production network in Australia.
• Prof Moses Tade (Curtin) - Advanced Proton-Conducting Ceramic FCs for Power Generation from Ammonia
• Associate Professor Zhenguo Huang (UTS) Novel hydrogen-rich liquids for storing and transporting hydrogen at scale.
• Professor Stefan Iglaue (Edith Cowan) - Improved hydrogen geological storage via zeta potential measurements.
• Professor Pathegama Ranjith (Monash) - Large-scale and long-term storage of Hydrogen in underground reservoirs
• Professor Chuan Zhao (UNSW) - Anion Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis for Clean Hydrogen Production
• Dr Jian Pan (UNSW) - Solar powered water splitting/flow cell system for hydrogen and electricity
• Professor Jianqiang Zhang (UNSW) - Corrosion of heat resisting alloys in steam/hydrogen-rich environment
• Professor Benjamin Hankamer (UQ) - Light-driven biocatalytic cell factories
• Associate Professor Tianyi Ma (Swinburne) - Monolithic Solar Thermal Photocatalytic Membrane for Hydrogen Production
Newcastle University has announced it will extend its partnership with BHP, and a further $10m, for a hydrogen research project aiming to decarbonise the steelmaking process.
For this, the expanded research programme will focus on low carbon iron and steelmaking using BHP’s iron ore and metallurgical coal, including conventional blast furnace ironmaking with the addition of hydrogen. The collaboration, with funding from BHP’s $400m Climate Investment Program, will last five years.
Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) has announced that it will take a 20% stake in Sparc Hydrogen Purity (Sparc Hydrogen). Sparc Hydrogen has taken an interest in exploiting photocatalytic hydrogen production technology that has arisen from a collaboration between the University of Adelaide and Flinders University. Most photocatalytic process only absorb from a relatively small proportion of the solar spectrum (principally at the UV end) whereas the South Australian development claims to capture more of the solar energy, and therefore yield a higher solar conversion efficiency.
BP Australia is undertaking a feasibility study into the production of green hydrogen at the site of the Kwinana refinery in WA. It will work on the project in partnership with Macquarie Capital and with funding from the Western Australian government. The company plans to repurpose the site as a clean energy hub, "which will include the production of renewable fuels," it said. BP also said it was "already underway with plans to develop a renewable fuels plant at the site, producing sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel." BP announced its plan to shut the refinery in October 2020 and wind down refining activities over the following six months. Refining activities were completed by March 2021.
Hyundai Motor Company Australia recently announced its investment in a new hydrogen refuelling station (HRS) at its Macquarie Park headquarters in Sydney. The facility will replace the company’s existing HRS which has been operating since 2014 and has been used to dispense hydrogen to a variety of vehicles including those of competitors.
The Tasmanian Government has signed its second memorandum of understanding on green hydrogen with a European body within two months. The agreement was signed with the region of Flanders in Northern Belgium, the first to be signed by the region.
The Smart Energy Council has announced ActewAGL’s hydrogen refuelling station in Canberra has been certified with renewable green hydrogen produced from 100 percent renewable energy and with zero carbon emissions. This marks the first project to be certified under the Councils certification scheme that has been developed with support from Industry and collaboration with Japan and Germany. The second project to be nominated for certification is the Yara’s planned green ammonia plant in the Pilbara which is expected to be certified by July 2022.
New Zealand's Refining NZ is reported to be collaborating with Fortescue Future Industries to study the "feasibility of production, storage, distribution, and export of industrial-scale green hydrogen from Marsden Point." The two companies signed an MoU for work on "identifying repurposing opportunities for Marsden Point, once refining operations cease." Work on the study will begin in early 2022. Refining NZ has previously said that its Marsden Point refinery will transition to an import-only fuel terminal from April 2022. In November 2021, the company's board took the final investment decision confirming the change of operations to a terminal called Channel Infrastructure. In the next four months, the company will focus on "the ongoing operation of our refinery" and the "safe shutdown and decommissioning of refinery assets”.
Indian state-owned natural gas company GAIL has started the country’s first hydrogen blending with natural gas in Madhya Pradesh state. GAIL supplies natural gas to over 91,000 homes and approximately 400 commercial and industrial customers in Indore, Ujjain, Pithampur and Gwalior in the central Indian states. India’s National Hydrogen Mission aims to reduce carbon emissions and increase the use of renewable sources of energy and targets three-quarters of its 2050 hydrogen production being green.
Focus on filling stations. 142 new hydrogen refuelling stations were opened worldwide in 2021, according to an annual assessment of H2stations.org, making the total in operation world-wide to be 685. According to H2stations.org, 33 countries now have hydrogen stations, with Hungary and Slovenia as new additions to such list. In Europe leads with 101 of the total 228 in Europe. On the other hand, Asia has 363 HRS locations. Japan (195), China (105) and Korea (95) are the most significant countries, with China leading the other Asian countries for hydrogen stations used almost exclusively for the refuelling of buses or trucks.
• 22-23 March, Australian Hydrogen Forum 2022, Sheraton Grand Sydney, Hyde Park and online
• 28-29 March, National Cleantech Conference, Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre and online
• 31 May- 1 June, The Australian Hydrogen Conference, Adelaide Convention Centre
• 4-5 May Annual Smart Energy Conference, International Convention Centre, Sydney
• 25-26 July, Connecting Green Hydrogen, APAC 2022, Conference and Exhibition Centre, Melbourne
If you have news items that you would like to share with the Australian Hydrogen Research Network, please send them to a.dicks@griffith.edu.au