BIO-Hydrogen, the CNR activity in the framework of AdP-PNRR program

According to the European Recovery & Resilience policies launched to react to COVID-19, Italy launched its own "Piano Nazionale di Recupero e Resilienza - PNRR" (National Plan of recovery and resilience) supported by EU. Within the actions, a significant effort for research was considered, and hydrogen technologies were considered as the training technologies for de-carbonisation and future energy market. In particular, the Minister for Energy Transition (now renamed Minister of Environment and Energy Security) launched the research agreement "AdP - Research and Development of technologies for the hydrogen supply chain" 8AdP-Hydrogen), with an investment of 110 MEUR.. The program foreseen an intensive collaboration between the three main research bodies involved in energy and environmental research (ENEA, CNR and RSE). The aims are: reinforce the collaboration between the three research bodies, and speed-up the technology transfer to industry of hydrogen technologies. For this reason the AdP-Hydrogen research program covers all the aspects of hydrogen value chain, including the new promising early stage hydrogen technologies that could be of interest for the national hydrogen value chain. The program is divided in Topics, Work Packages and Line of Activity, where each research body contribute with research activities that are complimentary each other. In this framework the Line of Activity 1.1.30 "Development of sustainable biological processes and bioreactors for the production of hydrogen with bacteria and/or photosynthetic microorganisms from by-products and biomass of the agro-food industry" (SusBioH), falls within the new promising approaches for sustainable hydrogen production. As clearly exposed in the title the SusBioH research activity aim is the valorisation of waste water by producing hydrogen as a high added value product. This approach will allow the concomitant depuration and reuse of waste water with the production of hydrogen and, possibly other valuable products, thus reducing the today energy consumption for waste water treatment. The research activity was started in July 2022 and foreseen: - Bio-chemical studies on anaerobic hypertemophiles bacteria of the Thermotogale order for bio-hydrogen production and CO2 capture. - Study of Micro-algae and cianobacters for the production of hydrogen fomr waste water. - Photo-fermentation of organic compound from polluting water and soil. - Development of materials for bacteria and micro-organism support, linkage and growth - Development of a new concept bio-reactor prototype for hydrogen production for demonstrating technology application potentialities and its transfer to industry. In this way the SusBioH research activity will contribute the four UN Sustainable development goals: Goal 6 - Clean water and sanitation Goal 7 - Affordable and clean energy Goal 9 - Industry, innovation and infrastructures Goal 11 - Sustainable cities and communities. In this presentation the premises, the aims and the research plan of LA 1.1.30 are presented together with a selection of the first year research results.