Lucideon hails AMRICC hydrogen firing breakthrough
13 Nov 2024
Advanced ceramics research organisation Lucideon says it has achieved the first 100% hydrogen firing at Applied Materials Research Innovation and Commercialisation Centre.
Its alternative energy project in collaboration with Creavit Türkiye required more than 13 hours at 1200°C, at AMRICC’s £10 million Staffordshire site.
The sanitaryware project could pave the way for other energy-intensive materials processing operations such as bricks, roof tiles and tableware manufacture to utilise hydrogen in their energy strategies, said Lucideon. Additionally, the firing of ceramic cores in the kiln could aid component manufacture decarbonisation.
Lucideon is one of five partners in the Foundation Industries Sustainability Consortium (FISC), the body which received partial funding from the Innovate UK EconoMISER programme for the hardware employed in the operation.
Chief operating officer, advanced materials at the company, Mark Dudson, said: “After leading the way on blended natural gas and hydrogen in 2022 and an intensive project to redesign the kiln and fuel supply system, Lucideon and The AMRICC Centre marked another major milestone in the mission to support the international ceramics industry on the journey to Net Zero.”
Lucideon joined forces with gas specialists BUSE Group, along with Cryoserve Engineering Services, Therser UK ltd, and 6 Engineering Ltd, to achieve the successful outcome.
AMRICC was developed in 2021 from the Midlands Industrial Ceramics Group’s £18 million-plus, four year research programme, funded by UKRI’s Strength in Places Fund.
Boasting more than 350 examples of high-value technology, AMRICC offers scientific, engineering, data science and computational modelling expertise to convert innovative projects into market technologies. It also partners universities to train and support material scientists for the ceramics industry.
