Ceramics UK Reaches Key Milestone in Hydrogen Project

Ceramics UK Reaches Key Milestone in Hydrogen Project

Ceramics UK, the trade association for the UK ceramics industry, announces a landmark achievement in its ambitious ‘Demonstrating Hydrogen in the Ceramics Sector’ project. The projects custom-built pilot kiln, designed to explore the use of hydrogen as an alternative fuel for ceramic production, has been successfully commissioned and is now operating on 100% hydrogen operation. Trials firing member-produced ceramic products with hydrogen have officially commenced.

This achievement marks a historic moment for the UK ceramics industry. For the first time, a pilot kiln of this scale has successfully operated entirely on hydrogen fuel. Phase 2 of the project builds on the groundbreaking success of Phase 1, which pioneered the first-ever demonstration of firing diverse ceramic products using 100% hydrogen without compromising quality.

Ceramics UK CEO Robert Flello adds,

This is a pivotal moment in our journey towards a sustainable future for the UK ceramics industry,

“The successful operation of the pilot kiln on 100% hydrogen and the initiation of member product trials represent a significant milestone for the project and a crucial step towards a lower-carbon future for the sector.”

Dr. Andrew McDermott, Deputy Chief Executive of Ceramics UK and Project Lead,said:

Our groundbreaking work during Phase 1 of the project in 2022, believed to be a World first, demonstrated the technical feasibility of firing various ceramic products with 100% hydrogen – a key decarbonisation option for the sector – without impacting product quality,

“Commissioning of the new pilot kiln to operate on 100% hydrogen marks another major milestone in the project. The kiln is custom-built and highly-instrumented to allow us to study in detail the hydrogen firing of ceramics under a range of conditions. Later this year we intend to complement this work, by also demonstrating the ability to retrofit an existing methane-fuelled production kiln to operate on 100% hydrogen.” 

This project is supported by 13 ceramic manufacturing companies representing all subsectors of the UK ceramics industry, demonstrating the sector’s commitment to decarbonisation. It is being conducted in collaboration with Glass Futures, a not-for-profit research and technology organisation, at their new state-of-the-art R&D facility in St Helens.

Funding for the project was awarded by the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero through Phase 2 of the Industrial Fuel Switching Phase 2 Competition, as part of the £1bn Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP), which supports innovation in the development of pre-commercial fuel switch technologies to help industry transition to lower-carbon fuels.

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