A collaboration project will focus on the use of hydrogen to decarbonise the glass manufacturing process.

The Horizon Europe project H2GLASS is a consortium of 23 partners from eight European countries.

The four-year project, has a €33 million budget and was awarded funding for €24 million at the end of July 2022. It has started the Grant Agreement process and the plan is to kick-off research activities in January 2023.

Among the members is Italian glass research facility Stazione Sperimentale del Vetro, (SSV).

H2GLASS aims to create the technology stack that glass manufacturers need in order to implement 100% H2 combustion in their production facilities, while ensuring the required product quality, respect of emission limits and operation in safe conditions.

The expertise of partners such as Steklarna Hrastnik, PTML Pilkington, Owens Corning and Stara Glass, representing the state of the art in the use of H2 in the glass sector will be an asset for the H2GLASS Consortium.

This will be complemented by a group of industrial and research institutions (SINTEF Energy, SINTEF Industry, SINTEF Manufacturing, STAM, Steinbeis Innovation, We Plus, NTNU, The University of Nottingham, Kemijski Institut, Fraunhofer, Aston University, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Stazione Sperimentale del Vetro, SENER, CIB UNIGAS) and other glass manufacturers that want to stay at the forefront of sustainable technology such as Vetrobalsamo and Zignago Vetro.

H2GLASS will feature a demonstrator for the aluminium industry: together with Hydro Havrand, the project will prove the transferability of the basic solutions and underlying models to energy-intensive industries that have similarities with the glass manufacturing process, thus strengthening the impact of the project.

The glass and aluminium industries employ 400,000 people in Europe, generate €3.5 billion and emit about 21.5 Mt CO₂ equivalents.

The innovation generated by H2GLASS has the potential to create 10,000 new jobs and unlock €1 – 5 billion revenue for glass technology deployment. It also has the potential to generate investments of upwards of €17 billion and 200,000 new jobs for green H2 – all the while cutting emissions by about 80%.