Gas power plants could be cheaply retrofitted to generate both hydrogen and power, according to researchers at the University of Amsterdam and IRCE Lyon.

Writing in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Green Chemistry, Gadi Rothenberg and colleagues describe how a catalyst could convert methane into hydrogen gas and combustible coke, allowing power stations to produce hydrogen fuel as well as electricity.

Such a catalyst could be inexpensively installed in existing gas power plants, and could ease the transition to a hydrogen economy without the need to build large and costly hydrogen-focused plants, the researchers say.Rothenberg says the retrofit idea “is a conceptual change.”

“When you’re going to produce hydrogen, you needn’t build a huge new power plant to do that,” Rothenberg says. “Diverting some of your existing methane feed to produce hydrogen just makes sense.”

The researchers tested a variety of catalysts and found that one in particular –  a nickel-based form — demonstrated both excellent catalytic activity and cost effectiveness, running at only about $10 per kilogram.

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