Sapporo Breweries Ltd., Shimadzu Corp. and Hiroshima University have jointly developed the world‘‘s first technology that can efficiently generate hydrogen and methane from bread waste. Japan for Sustainability reports that their research group announced that their small-scale experimental system had run successfully for over 6 months. The National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, an independent administrative institute in Japan commissioned and sponsored this research.

Desulphurisation of biogas that contains corrosive sulfur has been a major challenge in attempting to use biogas in fuel cells. The new system, however, can separately generate sulphur-free hydrogen and methane by controlling the fermentation process.

The experiment successfully decomposed and dissolved about 80 per cent of bread waste within only a quarter of the conventional processing time. Furthermore, in terms of calorific value calculated on the basis of the amount of gas collected, the newly developed technology produced over 10 per cent more biogas compared to the existing method of producing methane alone through fermentation.

The research group is now working on further development of the system towards practical application, and launched a pilot-scale experiment in mid-October 2004. Application of the technology may extend to other raw materials such as agricultural and forestry wastes, and expectations are high that it can be used in a variety of industrial fields in future