Hazer Group wants to make clean hydrogen from Perth sewerage

Hazer Group, the tech firm backed by Chris Ellison’s Mineral Resources, is looking to turn gas from Perth’s sewerage into clean hydrogen.

Hazer announced today it had signed an agreement with the Water Corporation to consider a building a pilot plant at Woodman Point to collect gas given off by sewerage treatment and turn it into hydrogen and graphite.

Current hydrogen production creates increasingly unwelcome carbon dioxide instead of the solid graphite from the Hazer process.

Hazer, which will own the 100 tonne-a-year demonstration plant, plans to have the plant operating by the end of 2020.

Hazer chief executive Geoff Ward said he was pleased that the Water Corp had agreed to work with the Perth-based firm.

“We believe the potential to use locally produced biogas as a feedstock for the Hazer process is a compelling proposition,” he said.

“It offers a combination of low production costs, significant carbon abatement and proximity to future users of hydrogen as a transport fuel in bus fleets, heavy transport fleets and large industrial users, while adding significant value to a waste resource,” he said.

Hazer has a smaller hydrogen-focussed pilot plant in Kwinana where Mineral Resources is using technology developed by Hazer to test the production of ultra-high-purity graphite.

Hazer shares were up 3¢, or 10 per cent, to 33¢ at 1 pm.