New Mexico Tech, LANL to Receive $1.3M in Federal Funding to Explore Potential of
Geologic Hydrogen
May 16, 2024
PRRC’s Dr. Sai Wang is principle investigator for DOE grant
Dr. Sai Wang of the PRRC
Petroleum Recovery Research Center at New Mexico Tech, collaborating with Los Alamos
National Laboratory, has been selected to receive $1.3M in funding from the U.S. Department
of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The funding is part of
ARPA-E’s Exploratory Topics related to geologic hydrogen, which aim to explore early-stage
research and development to advance low-cost, low-emissions hydrogen.
The Exploratory Topic G: Production of Geologic Hydrogen through Stimulated Mineralogical
Processes seeks technologies that stimulate hydrogen production from mineral deposits
found in the subsurface, including developing understanding of hydrogen-producing
geochemical reactions and how to enhance or control the rate of hydrogen production.
This is the first time that the U.S. government has competitively selected teams to
research this kind of technology.
The proposed GeoHydRA project (geochemical and hydromechanical stimulation for reaction
acceleration) will explore early-stage research and development to advance low-cost,
low-emissions hydrogen, which will help create good-paying jobs and new economic opportunities
in communities across the nation while also helping meet President Biden’s ambitious
climate and decarbonization goals.
“Engineering geological hydrogen production from serpentinization could potentially
enable the production of substantial amounts of clean energy, but many technical barriers
exist,” said Dr. Sai Wang, an interim section head from PRRC and the lead Principle
Investigator at NMT on this grant.
“Here, we propose technologies to stimulate geological hydrogen by enhancing and sustaining
sufficient reaction surface areas in in-situ olivine-rich ultramafic rocks. Our proposal
embraces laboratory experiments and numerical modeling that combine and couple the
state of the knowledge in geochemistry, geomechanics, fracture mechanics, and porous
media flow. We will deliver key knowledges and multiscale numerical modeling tools
towards engineering geological hydrogen generation,” said Dr. Wang.
The overall objective of this project is to develop a method to increase the production
rate of stimulated hydrogen through promoting hierarchical cracks in reactant rock
formations. The proposed work would enhance the injection design and fluid chemistry
to ensure that hydrogen production rates do not decrease quickly over time, as prior
laboratory experiments and numerical modeling have suggested.
The grant was awarded under the Department of Energy Funding Opportunity Announcement,
DE-FOA-0002784. The title of the grant application is “Geochemical and Hydromechanical
Stimulation for Reaction Acceleration (GeoHydRA) of Serpentinization for In Situ Hydrogen
Production.”
Details are available at https://arpa-e.energy.gov/document/geologic-hydrogen-project-descriptions