While India has targeted to produce Hydrogen from natural resources to ensure energy security, Indian researchers from the Science and Technology Ministry (DST) have designed a process that could produce hydrogen from agricultural waste.

The process of using agricultural waste would not only produce future fuel Hydrogen but also solve the problem of agriculture waste management—a major problem in North India. Besides, it would earn extra income to the farmers, who will get paid for their agricultural waste, which otherwise they burn and create air pollution in the region, the Ministry of Science and Technology said.

According to DST, It would be one of the most economical ways to produce hydrogen, help in disposing of agricultural waste, and produce organic manure as a by-product. If senior officers of the DST are to be believed, the new technology is 25 % more efficient as compared to the conventional anaerobic digestion process.

Unlike conventional technologies, the two-stage process eliminates the pretreatment of biomass making the process economical and environment friendly. “This process generates a digestate that is rich in nutrients which can be used as an organic fertilizer,” said Dr. Prashant Dhakephalkar, Director of the Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), which has developed the technology.

The hydrogen fuel generation process comprises the use of a specially developed microbial consortium that facilitates biodegradation of cellulose- and hemicellulose-rich agricultural residues, such as biomass of paddy, wheat, or maize, without thermo-chemical or enzymatic pretreatment. The process generates Hydrogen in the first stage and Methane in the second. The methane generated in the process can also be used to generate additional hydrogen, the Ministry said.

The ARI is an autonomous Institute under DST, which had developed the unique technology in collaboration with the KPIT-Sentient Labs, has already filed for an Indian patent to protect the IPR, the Ministry of Science and Technology (DST) said. Though the technology has been developed at a lab scale to extract hydrogen from agriculture waste, its industrial model would be ready soon.

Once this technology goes for Industrial production, it would use agricultural waste, which faces a great challenge for disposal, as one of the sources of hydrogen production. It would further solve the dual problem of energy generation and waste disposal, the DST stated.

“This breakthrough of generating hydrogen from unutilized agricultural residue will help us to become self-reliant on energy resources. It will also add a major stream of revenue to the farmer community,” said Ravi Pandit, Chairman, KPIT-Sentient Labs.