There is growing interest in many parts of the world to use waste materials to produce hydrogen, like with pig dung, poultry waste and even coconut husks. All of these have been explored as potential feedstocks. In Thailand, vehicle manufacturer Toyota is even exploring the use of hydrogen made from chicken waste to fuel its vehicles.
Engineers at the University of Illinois Chicago in the US recently developed another promising method to make hydrogen involving manure. In their case, they used the manure, along with sugarcane waste and corn husks, to make biochar. This carbon-rich substance vastly reduces the amount of electricity needed to convert water to hydrogen.
In the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka, on Kyushu, meanwhile, another waste product is being used to produce hydrogen – and here the dung is from humans. For more than a decade, hydrogen has been created at the city’s sewage treatment plant for use in hydrogen-powered vehicles. Most recently it has been used to fuel a fleet of zero-emission rubbish trucks.
Trucks that transport daily products are the town’s main source of CO2, rather than large factories as in many other cities. So work is going on to reduce CO2 emissions from commercial trucks.
The sludge from the sewage treatment works in Fukuoka City is being turned into hydrogen to fuel vehicles. The initiative started as a collaboration between Kyushu University and Fukuoka City but now involves several major companies including Toyota.
Sewage is something that is steadily discharged every day in the daily lives of citizens, so by making effective use of that sewage and extracting hydrogen as energy, one can achieve local production and local consumption of energy.
Generating hydrogen from human waste starts with water from various household sources – including showers, dishwashers and toilets – arriving at the treatment plant. As the water is cleaned, the residual sludge is kept as a source of biogas and converted into hydrogen.
Sewage and biogas contain various impurities, so the process begins with the process of removing those impurities, which is a little different from other hydrogen production processes.
In 2024, Toyota helped the city launch Japan’s first hydrogen-powered service vehicle fleet, including ambulances, delivery vans and bin trucks. Officials at the sewage treatment plant say it is capable of producing 300kg (661lbs) of hydrogen in 12 hours – enough to fuel 30 trucks.
The rubbish trucks head out six nights each week, each collecting 1.7 ton (3,700lb) of rubbish, all while running silently and emission-free on the bodily waste of the people they are collecting other waste from.
Fuel from Sewage
Turning organic waste products into hydrogen fuel is an idea gathering popularity in many parts of the world.
Fukuoka’s sewage-to-hydrogen fueling station has been around since 2015, and several other countries around the world are now adopting a similar approach.
Concord Blue has developed waste-to-energy plants in Germany, India, Japan and the US, converting waste and biomass into hydrogen and bioenergy. Several water authorities in the UK are also working on projects to derive hydrogen from sewage. A prototype race car has also been developed using sewage-derived hydrogen in the UK. The Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), in partnership with Severn Trent Water, is harnessing microbes that generate hydrogen fuel from waste. They anticipate the technology could hit the mainstream within five years, despite existing challenges.
They have developed a prototype race car made from sustainable materials, that is powered by… sewage. Or rather, sewage treatment technology which involves microbes feeding on waste producing hydrogen as a by-product – and it is this hydrogen which produces fuel for the car. As per reports, Formula 1 has made steps to make the sport more sustainable in recent years, after announcing in 2019 that it hopes to become carbon neutral by 2030.
That includes more efficient engines and tweaks to the calendar to reduce the distance freight travels by plane. In 2026 new regulations will be introduced, which include smaller, nimbler cars and 100% sustainable fuel. In April, the electric car racing series Extreme E will switch from electric to hydrogen-powered cars, renaming itself Extreme H. German manufacturer BMW has also announced plans to put a hydrogen car for domestic use on sale from 2028. On a larger scale, aviation accounts for 2% of global carbon emissions, and researchers in a UK lab have developed jet fuel made entirely from human sewage.
Still, despite the promise, all of these technologies have yet to be delivered at significant scale. Whether in rural or city landscapes, the Japanese projects we’ve seen during in filming are inspiring because they have the local community at their heart. While adoption of hydrogen cars has stalled, hydrogen truck adoption is increasing gradually, and it is these larger heavier industrial vehicles that contribute most significantly per vehicle to greenhouse gas emissions.
Thus, by reimagining waste as a resource, these projects demonstrate that energy can be found in even the most unlikely of places.
Educationist/Administrator/Editor/Author/Speaker
Commencing teaching in his early twenties, Prof Aggarwal has diverse experience of great tenure in the top institutions not only as an educationist, administrator, editor, author but also promoting youth and its achievements through the nicest possible content framing. A revolutionary to the core, he is also keen to address the society around him for its betterment and growth on positive notes while imbibing the true team spirit the work force along with.
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