At a press conference during Achema 2024, Festo SE & Co. KG (Esslingen, Germany; www.festo.com) presented the BionicHydrogenBattery — a new concept for the simple storage and safe transportation of hydrogen.
Currently, H2 can only be stored and transported safely and in a space-saving manner using processes that require extremely high or low temperatures, and high pressures of 150–700 bars, which requires a lot of energy, said Nina Gaissert from Festo’s Corporate Portfolio Projects. In contrast, the fully automated biotechnological system, the BionicHydrogenBattery, is a completely new approach, whereby H2 and CO2 are converted into formic acid with the help of bacteria in a low-risk and energy-efficient manner — and at comparatively low temperature (around 65°C) and a low pressure of 1.5 bars. The acid can be easily stored and transported. At the destination, the same bacteria reverse the process and decompose the acid back into CO2 and H2. While the latter can be used to generate electricity, the high-purity CO2 could be recycled and used in the beverage industry, for example.
The core of the biological process is the bacterium Thermoanaerobacter kivui. These bacteria have a special enzyme that enables them to convert hydrogen and CO2 into formic acid. This process was discovered and fundamentally researched by the team led by professor Volker Müller, head of the Molecular Microbiology and Bioenergetics department at Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany; www.goethe-university-frankfurt.de), with whom the Festo team is working closely on the project.
Source: Festo