$1.2M Research Grant

Innova, in partnership with the University of Alberta (UofA), has been awarded a $1.2 million contribution from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Mitacs Accelerate Grants Program to advance its methane pyrolysis technology.

Thank you to the UofA's Folio magazine for publishing the article, "Hydrogen Research Heats Up", where Innova's technical advisor, and UofA professor and project leader, Dr. Jason Olfert, was interviewed to share more about the collaborative project.

Methane pyrolysis extracts hydrogen and high-demand carbon products from natural gas.

"Existing technology requires natural gas to be heated to about 1,000 C in a reactor, thermally decomposing it into hydrogen and 'carbon black'... But the generation of heat for that process — typically produced by electricity or burning natural gas — emits CO2.

"The Innova... process lowers the required temperature for decomposition but still produces the same amount of hydrogen. The lower the heat, the more efficient the process becomes.

"'In Alberta we’re sitting on lots of natural gas, and we want to be able to use it without producing CO2 emissions,' Olfert said. 'If we turn it into hydrogen without making emissions, we’ve solved the problem. We need to develop low-cost energy sources which can meet energy needs on demand. Wind and solar are inexpensive but are intermittent and less reliable. We need something else, and a lot of people are proponents of hydrogen.'

"One of the cleanest sources of energy is hydrogen, which produces only water when it is burned or used in a fuel cell. Its production has become a key part of Alberta’s economic recovery plan, as outlined in the province’s Hydrogen Roadmap.

"Alberta is the largest producer of hydrogen in Canada, having used it for decades to upgrade bitumen to synthetic crude oil.

"According to the Hydrogen Strategy for Canada, hydrogen could deliver up to 30 per cent of Canada’s end-use energy and meet up to 24 per cent of the global energy demand by 2050.

"'An added bonus to Innova’s planned reactor is that it could also produce upgraded carbon products,' Olfert said. 'If you play your cards right, you can make other types of carbon, like carbon nanotubes or perhaps even graphene.' Graphene is the thinnest known material at one atom thick and about 200 times stronger than steel.

Read the full article here.