South Africa is constantly improving mineral processing technologies to enable more cost-effective and wider exploitation of the country's mineral resources, and the launch today of a suit of laboratories dedicated to hydrogen research is one such initiative.

Launched by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), the facility - located at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria - will be jointly used by Hydrogen South Africa (HySA) and the Batteries Research Centre for energy storage to conduct research to develop novel materials that can meet the challenging hydrogen energy storage requirements.

Speaking at the launch, Mr Imraan Patel, Deputy Director-General for Socio-economic Innovation Partnerships of the DST, said facilities such as these were part of government's response to the global challenge of energy security.

"Amid the global movement towards developing sustainable energy systems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier, combined with fuel cell technology, has attracted considerable interest from government, international bodies and commercial companies worldwide," he said.

Fuel cells that use a precious metals group catalyst like platinum use hydrogen, which has little or no polluting emissions as chemical energy is converted to electrical energy. Hydrogen is touted as a future clean and efficient fuel, but the challenge is developing infrastructure to produce, store and make hydrogen available for these applications, in addition to getting cheaper replacement catalysts.

"The main challenge around hydrogen and fuel cells is storage; therefore the widespread adoption of hydrogen as a fuel depends upon the ability to store hydrogen," said Dr Dimitri Bessarabov, Director of the DST Hydrogen Infrastructure Centre of Competence (CoC) at the CSIR.

The HySA Infrastructure CoC is housed in the DST's HySA battery programme. The Centre's research and development focus is on hydrogen production, storage and delivery, as well as lithium ion batteries for stationary and mobile applications. The HySA Infrastructure CoC is co-hosted by the CSIR and North-West University (NWU), and it is led by Dr Bessarabov of NWU and Dr Henrietta Langmi of the CSIR. The battery project is led by the University of the Western Cape and the CSIR, with the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and the University of Limpopo as "spokes". Prof. Kenneth Ozoemena leads the CSIR's battery group.

The CSIR-hosted facility will also deliver on a number of national needs, such as the development of cost-competitive solutions for the generation and storage of hydrogen.

"The establishment of the research facility is a milestone that is set to stimulate local beneficiation of indigenous materials, positively impacting economic growth and job creation in accordance with the country's national development plan," said Dr Bessarabov.

The hydrogen and energy storage facility is the second project to be hosted by the CSIR as part of the platinum group metals beneficiation initiative. The other is the Titanium CoC.

About HySA

HySA was spawned by the National Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Technologies Research, Development and Innovation Strategy, which was developed by the DST in 2006 and implemented as a 10-year programme.

The vision of the strategy is to establish new technology-intensive industries through the creation of intellectual property related to the use of minerals indigenous to South Africa, especially the platinum group metals, thereby creating a new fuel cell industry, wealth and jobs. The batteries will further benefit the country through the beneficiation of local raw materials such as manganese and titanium.

The multi-million rand investment in the CSIR's HySA Infrastructure CoC and the Batteries Research Centre boasts equipment vital to research into hydrogen and batteries; these enable the synthesis, characterisation and testing of storage materials.

HySA consists of three CoCs, namely, the HySA Infrastructure (CSIR and NWU), HySA Catalysis (UCT and Mintek) and HySA Systems (UWC) CoCs, each of which manages complementary research programmes under HySA. The batteries initiative reports to HySA Systems at UWC.

For more information, please contact Tendani Tsedu, CSIR Media Relations Manager, at 012 841 3417 or 082 945 1980 or mtsedu@csir.co.za

or

Veronica Mohapeloa, Media Liaison Officer, Department of Science and Technology, at 012 843 6788 or 083 400 5750 or veronica.mohapeloa@dst.gov.za