Originally published January 31 2005
Hydrogen generated from bread waste; Japanese brewery developing new technology
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Japanese brewery Sapporo Breweries Ltd., working with corporate and educational partners, has developed a technology that can efficiently generate hydrogen and methane gas from the waste products of bread production. Sapporo has successfully run a demonstration plant for six months, and is now working on expanding the system to a production model.
Sapporo Breweries Ltd., in partnership with Shimadzu Corp. and Hiroshima University, has developed the world's first technology that can efficiently generate hydrogen and methane from bread waste.
Their research group has announced that their small-scale experimental system had run successfully for over six months.
The National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, an independent administrative institute in Japan commissioned and sponsored this research.
Desulfurization of biogas that contains corrosive sulfur has been a major challenge in attempting to use biogas in fuel cells.
The new system, however, can separately generate sulfur-free biohydrogen and methane by controlling the fermentation process.
The experiment successfully decomposed and dissolved about 80 percent of bread waste within only a quarter of the conventional processing time.
Furthermore, in terms of calorific value calculated on the basis of the amount of gas collected, the newly developed technology produced over 10 percent more biogas compared to the existing method of producing methane alone through fermentation.
The research group is now working on further development of the system towards practical application, and launched a pilot-scale experiment in mid-October 2004.
Application of the technology may extend to other raw materials such as agricultural and forestry wastes, and expectations are high that it can be used in a variety of industrial fields in future.
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