Sirius project completed: green hydrogen electrolyser validated at industrial scale with record purity

Led by Hyter, a company of the Pietro Fiorentini Group, together with INRETE Distribuzione Energia, MatRes and the Department of Chemical Sciences of the University of Padua, the three-year SIRIUS project has been completed. Supported by Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), the project designed, built and validated an AEMWE electrolyser in a real industrial environment. The solution can be scaled up to 1 MW and produced hydrogen with a purity of up to 99.999%.

This high level of purity broadens the range of applications in which green hydrogen can be used without additional treatment, with benefits for both energy efficiency and operating costs. The main project results include:

• design, construction and industrial validation of an AEMWE electrolyser with a capacity of up to 1 MW;
• hydrogen purity of up to 99.999%, compliant with ISO 14687;
• development and validation of advanced electrode materials;
• patent applications covering materials and the design of the cell and stack.

The prototype uses modular 250 kW stacks designed for energy efficiency of up to 85%. Field testing at the INRETE site in Granarolo dell’Emilia, powered by renewable electricity, confirmed the technical feasibility, reliability and operational stability of the solution.

The result confirms the scalability of Hyter’s AEMWE technology towards the megawatt scale and lays the foundation for the next stage of industrialisation. Source: Pietro Fiorentini.