Have you ever wondered what the separate collections that each of us are required to do are for, in particular that of organic waste? Among many things, they will power the cars of the future, because biogas is obtained from the organic masses, i.e. clean methane and hydrogen which go to power non-polluting cars and with higher performance than electric ones.
Japan is focusing on hydrogen in particular: the first to be landed on the market is Toyota with the Mirai model, but also Honda has begun sales of the Clarity Fuel Cell, which offers range and recharge times comparable to internal combustion engines. The Japanese government has decided, in an attempt to diversify energy sources and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, to increase hydrogen cars a hundredfold between now and 2020, bringing them to 40 (and according to plans, 800 in 2030).
Is such a revolution possible in Italy too? We went to ask theEnvironment Park of Turin, Science and technology park for the environment founded in the 1996 and specialized in clean technologies. Envipark is a publicly-owned Spa, mainly owned by Finpiemonte and the Municipality of Turin, which works above all on national or European tenders and on commissions from companies, some of which are also very important on the national scene.
In the green chemistry department we work, with very rare innovative plants in Italy, on the valorisation of biomass of a biological nature. For example, studies are carried out on how to obtain biogas from everyday organic waste or agricultural waste (above all straw, staying with biogas, but also, for example, pomace to extract useful substances for the formulation of cosmetic products): "We do industrial scale-up - explains biotechnologist Luca Ricci -: we evaluate how and if a production process, for example of biogas, is transferable from a laboratory scale to an industrial scale”.
The phases of the anaerobic digestion process are four and lead to the production of biogas, in the green chemistry laboratories the anaerobic digestion process is however divided into two distinct parts in such a way as to arrive at the combined production not only of biogas but also of bio-hydrogen starting from a single matrix. “Biogas – explains Ricci – is a mixture of gases, mainly biomethane and carbon dioxide. A subsequent purification process eliminates CO2 and other impurities and gives us back bio-methane at a high degree of purity (100% clean)”.
Just as the bio-hydrogen deriving from this process is pure, and both can thus be used as sustainable and efficient energy vectors. How much it is possible to produce with X quantity of organic waste used is difficult to say, “it varies greatly depending on many factors, but the two-stage process tested at Envipark is capable of increase biogas production yield by 20-30% compared to the normal single-stage process, aimed at the production of biogas only”, concludes Ricci.
Once clean energy is obtained, it could be used in the car market of the future. In particular, hydrogen, as an alternative to methane itself or above all to electricity, can even be convenient on an economic level and more interesting in terms of performance. “A fuel cell car – explains Sabina Fiorot, chemical engineer at the Environment Park in the advanced energy department – consumes about 1 kg of hydrogen to travel 100 kilometres, and 1 kg of hydrogen currently costs a little more in Italy of 12 euros. The price of a full tank of hydrogen for cars is therefore comparable to that of a diesel vehicle: 100 km with a diesel vehicle of the same category can cost up to 13,5 euros, depending on the fuel price”.
Not only that: hydrogen vehicles, compared to electric ones for example, have a much longer range, which it can even exceed 500 km, and significantly shorter refueling times (2-3 minutes, a little more than we are used to losing to "get petrol") compared to battery-powered vehicles. "In short, while the electric car may be suitable for short distances and urban mobility, a hydrogen-powered vehicle has all the features to enter the market for long distances and mountain roads as well", adds Fiorot.
The problem, in Italy as indeed for now also in Japan, is the infrastructure: “At the moment there is only one distributor in the whole country, in Bolzano. And one of the few companies that is really active on hydrogen is the thirty-something Solid Power, which however operates in the field of domestic heating”. In fact, always with the same system, i.e. through fuel cells (SOFC cells, solid oxide fuel cells), it is possible to produce not only energy but also heat.
Even on this front, however, Japan is showing the way forward. In fact, in its energy strategy Tokyo, in addition to hydrogen cars, is also promoting domestic fuel cells: by 2030, 5,3 million homes are expected to have one. At present, there are already 150 plants, according to the ministry. In Europe, however, the Ene.field project is already active, for the diffusion of fuel cell technology: Solid Power, in collaboration with Dolomiti Energia and with the partnership of Envipark, is about to install around 3.000 domestic heating systems in Northern Italy called CHP (Combined Heat and Power). Another way, always obtaining clean energy from the waste we produce every day, to make our life, from the car to the house, increasingly sustainable.
