The consortium aims to equip biogas plants in Greece to produce high-purity hydrogen and capture CO₂.
Green hydrogen technology company Metacon has secured funding from the EU to participate in the PUREHY2+ project in Greece.
The initiative aims to develop technology to enable biogas producers to generate high-purity hydrogen while capturing carbon dioxide (CO₂) at production sites.
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Of Metacon’s project budget of $263,271 (€235,022), the EU grant covers €188,018, representing an 80% funding rate.
PUREHY2+ focuses on integrating hydrogen production into established biogas facilities, which already process organic waste at numerous locations across Europe.
The project intends to create an add-on system for these plants, enabling them to refine biogas into hydrogen with a purity exceeding 99.97%, and to separate and capture the resulting CO₂.
This approach aims to provide biogas producers with an additional product and extend the use of renewable resources beyond electricity and biomethane.
The total budget for the three-year project stands at €1.62m. The consortium comprises Metacon, biogas producer BIOGAS LAGKADA, and Greek research institutes NCSR Demokritos and CERTH/CPERI.
The group will assess two hydrogen production methods: biomethane reforming and dark fermentation using cyanobacteria.
Hybrid membrane and sorbent systems will be created to purify the gases and facilitate CO₂ capture. The project aims to achieve fuel cell-grade hydrogen produced from biogas.
For Metacon, participation in PUREHY2+ will support the further development of its reforming technology, gas purification and system integration.
The company intends to demonstrate how its systems could be implemented in current biogas infrastructure, potentially enabling distributed hydrogen production without the need for new, electricity-intensive capacity.
PUREHY2+ builds on findings from the earlier PUREHY project, in which the same consortium developed a semi-pilot hydrogen production unit in Greece, installed at BIOGAS LAGKADA.
This earlier unit demonstrated the feasibility of producing 1m³/h of hydrogen per from biogas, with a purity above 99%.
Metacon president and CEO Christer Wikner said: “Biogas plants already have access to valuable renewable feedstock and established production infrastructure.
“We see great potential in how these assets can also be used to produce high-purity green hydrogen and capture green carbon dioxide on-site.”
The PUREHY2+ project is scheduled to run for 36 months.