Brazilian state water firm partners with German company to produce green hydrogen

Sanepar, the public water utility in Brazil's Paraná state, signed an MOU with German hydrogen technology company Graforce to produce green hydrogen.

The partnership between the two companies is aimed at developing technology for producing green hydrogen from biomethane generated in Sanepar's sewage treatment plants in the southern Brazilian state.

In addition to allowing production of green hydrogen, the technology will also make it possible to obtain pure carbon, a solid material with a high market value that can be used for making biofertilizers, Sanepar said in a statement.

The MOU was signed in Kremsmünster, Austria, where Graforce installed the world's first large-scale plant to generate hydrogen through plasma pyrolysis of methane in natural gas.  

Sanepar is also in the process of completing feasibility studies on the production of green hydrogen in sewage treatment plants, in partnership with the Brazil-German chamber of commerce and industry of Rio de Janeiro (AHK-Rio), as part of an agreement signed last year. 

“Sanepar is aware of the global effects of climate change, as well as the sustainable energy transition agenda. In this sense, the partnership with Graforce is very important because Paraná may come to have the second large-scale plant in the world with methane plasma pyrolysis technology, and the first of its kind to generate renewable hydrogen from biogas produced in sewage treatment plants," said Claudio Stabile, president of Sanepar.