Waste management and recycling company, MYGroup, is lending its facilities and expertise to a £5 million project funded by the Government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to produce clean energy for the UK transport sector.
The project, known as ‘H2-Boost’, is focused on demonstrating at scale a commercially viable and sustainable process for producing biohydrogen – a clean, gaseous biofuel created through microbial fermentation of organic waste.
The H2-Boost project is led by the Biorenewables Development Centre (BDC), a subsidiary of the University of York and comprises, alongside MYGroup, nine other partners from academia and industry.
MYGroup will host the project at The Maltings, its food waste processing and recycling facility in South Milford, North Yorkshire, where it will provide space to build the biohydrogen production system and supply organic waste as feedstocks – effectively the ‘fuel’ for the process. Product for the feedstocks at this scale will include green and food waste, as well as soiled card and paper.
The company’s chemistry arm, which is based at The Maltings site, will also be working with the BDC to evaluate at lab scale a range of secondary feedstocks such as cosmetics waste and insect frass to assess their potential for future biohydrogen production.
In a preceding phase of the H2-Boost project, which investigated viable, accessible feedstocks and anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities in the UK, MYGroup was identified as a potential partner.
The company has extensive experience in the organic sector, with its Maltings site one of the largest food waste processing facilities in the UK, encompassing a range of technologies, including AD, composting and landspreading. This makes the 11-acre facility the ideal incubator site for BDC to construct and operate the containerised dark fermentation process and hydrogen capture system required to produce biohydrogen.
We’re proud to be hosting and partnering on such a high-profile project at the forefront of the Government’s efforts to deliver on its Net Zero commitment. Our work with BDC and the wider project team is set to provide a tangible, working blueprint for hydrogen fuel production at scale, underpinned by our sustainable, circular waste processes.
Steve Carrie, Group Director, MYGroup
We are delighted to be leading the phase 2 funding of this project. Working with our ten partners, the University of Leeds, Greenthread Solutions, Qube Renewables, Aardvark EM, WSP, Cyanocapture Ltd, MYGroup/The Maltings Organic Treatment Ltd, AB Agri, NNFCC and CM90 Ltd, we have a real opportunity here to make a difference as the H2Boost objectives align with the UK ambition of reaching net-zero by 2050 with low carbon hydrogen-based technologies providing up to 35% of energy requirements.
Deborah Rathbone, Bioscience Innovation Team Manager, Biorenewables Development Centre
The H2-Boost project has the decarbonisation of passenger and long-haulage transport in its sights – a sector that contributed to 16% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2019.
BDC were awarded £5 million for the project as part of the Hydrogen BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) Innovation Programme. The funding for this programme comes from the government’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, run by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which aims to fast-track the commercialisation of cutting-edge clean energy technologies and processes.
