Clean fuel technologist Eden Energy has signed a research agreement with a Chinese university to explore the use of biomass as a base ingredient for production of the company"s patented hydrogen enriched methane fuel mixture, Hythane.

The agreement is with the Henan Agricultural University of Zheng Zhou in the Henan province in north-eastern China.

It will focus on researching opportunities to produce hydrogen and methane gas naturally from biomass degradation, as the key ingredients for the Australian company's patented hydrogen/methane fuel.

Hythane, an efficient and clean burning alternative fuel, is a mixture of hydrogen and natural gas, most of the latter of which is methane. Methane has been produced for decades around the world from biomass decomposition.

In sewage plants particularly, it has been commercially captured for internal electricity generation through a process known as anaerobic digestion. This process generates significant savings for sewage plant operating costs and negates the need for the methane to be released into the atmosphere.

Eden executive chairman Greg Solomon says: "The recent surge of interest in hydrogen as an alternative fuel has led many researchers in this field to attempt hydrogen production, instead of methane, by anaerobic digestion.

"One of the problems encountered through research to date has been producing relatively pure hydrogen without significant contamination by the methane.

"The purpose of the Eden-Henan research agreement is to exploit the natural processes that result in co-production of hydrogen and methane to make BioHythane, a 100% renewable, hydrogen/methane fuel mix.

"With Hythane poised as the transition fuel technology into an all hydrogen economy, the signing of this research agreement is strategic in Eden's efforts to develop a suite of hydrogen based renewable fuels," Greg Solomon says.

The research program will be headed by a Henan Associate Professor in biochemistry, Dr You Xi Feng, whose doctoral thesis concentrated on production of hydrogen from biomass. Professor You's experimental studies, to be undertaken on Henan's campus in the city of Zheng Zhou, will focus on how to control process parameters.

This will include the type or types of biomass used, selection of bacterial cultures and temperature and acidity levels, so that hydrogen (20% volume) and methane (80%) yields are proportionate for bona fide Hythane.

Eden will monitor the research through its wholly owned Colorado-based research and development subsidiary, The Hythane Company. www.hythane.com.