DIPC project secures European funding to explore a new pathway for sustainable hydrogen production

Ikerbasque Professor Juan Manuel García-Ruiz, based at the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), has received European Union funding to develop and assess the technological potential of a discovery made during experimental research carried out within the ERC Synergy project PROTOS, which investigates the role of silica on the early Earth and in the origin of life. The support comes through an ERC Proof of Concept (PoC) grant for the project MIN-H2 (A Mineral Pathway for Sustainable Hydrogen Production), which will explore whether this discovery could pave the way to a new route to sustainable hydrogen production.

The origins of MIN-H2 lie in the first experimental results obtained within the PROTOS project. During the formation of certain self-organised iron–silica mineral structures, researchers observed that small bubbles were being generated. Curiosity about their nature prompted the team to analyse them, revealing that they consisted of molecular hydrogen. While this finding may help improve our understanding of the Earth's early atmosphere, it also has unexpected technological potential: the fact that it could open up an entirely new route for the sustainable production of hydrogen.

During the 18-month long project, the research team will focus on scaling up the reactions observed in small laboratory vials to a larger experimental reactor, taking a key step towards advancing the technology to the next stage of development. At this stage, the University of the Basque Country (EHU) will participate as the beneficiary institution under the leadership of Professors María Paulis Lumbreras and Oihane Sanz Iturralde of the Faculty of Chemistry, who will oversee the design and validation of the reactor to verify the system's performance under controlled conditions. The technology has already been the subject of a European patent application protecting both the process developed and its potential technological applications.

From scientific discovery to Innovation with social impact

ERC Proof of Concept (PoC) grants support the development of innovative applications arising from research previously funded by the European Research Council (ERC). They are available exclusively to ERC grant holders and are intended to facilitate the transfer of scientific results into applications with potential social or economic impact.

In this context, the award of the MIN-H2 project highlights, once again, the value of fundamental research as a driver of innovation, showing how discoveries driven by scientific curiosity can ultimately lead to technologies with tangible societal impact.such as the sustainable production of hydrogen, in line with European Union policies that aim for an energy transition toward more sustainable models and identify hydrogen as a key vector for decarbonizing transportation, the building sector, and industry, among other sectors, and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

The award represents further European recognition of the fundamental research carried out at DIPC. In the first ERC Proof of Concept call of 2026, MIN-H2 was the only project awarded to a researcher from an institution within the Basque science and innovation ecosystem. This achievement is part of the DIPC’s scientific evolution in recent years, marked by the expansion of its experimental capabilities, the incorporation of new lines of research, and the opening of a new building with more than 1,100 square meters of laboratories and infrastructure designed to advance cutting-edge research and the development of technologies with transfer potential.