A team of experts at The University of Manchester led by Dr Amir Keshmiri have received government funding to work with Powerhouse Energy Plc - a world-leading UK company specialising in treatment of unrecyclable wastes - to help recover hydrogen for clean energy use.

This project will develop and validate a novel and inexpensive game-changing hydrogen separation technique that builds upon Powerhouse Energy's expertise in waste treatment and the international track-record of Dr Amir Keshmiri’s team in fluid dynamics and thermochemical analysis.

This potential breakthrough in advanced thermal treatment to recover hydrogen from unrecyclable wastes could make a significant contribution to the UK’s net zero targets and reduce project costs compared to existing recovery methods - also, as well as being ”greener and cheaper”, this new technology would be an important asset to help secure UK energy security at a time of major crisis and uncertainly.  

The rapid development and commercialisation of the invention, that the collaboration will directly support achieving the UK governments Low Carbon Hydrogen Strategy’s 5GW installed capacity target by 2030.

The project, which is initially funded by the EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account grant, effectively encourages the swifter adoption of local, cleaner, low carbon energy - while addressing a growing unrecyclable waste issue, working within the existing waste hierarchy framework.

Dr Amir Keshmiri, Associate Professor in Computational Fluid Dynamics at The University of Manchester, said: “The collaboration allows The University of Manchester to be at the forefront of high-impact, game-changing technology development within the emerging clean hydrogen energy sector - and allows the academic team to capitalise on the bespoke hydrogen models developed to a wider audience.