Can Clean Hydrogen Be Produced Without The Colors?

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This story developed as I stumbled upon it while researching the hydrogen projects of Philippine vehicle maker Francisco Motors’ (another story soon). I discovered the story flipping through pages (yes, paper brochures) of literature I’ve picked up from earlier this year from various energy events.

While most of the readers of CleanTechnica know the colors of hydrogen, I can’t seem to find a color to match what Utility Global is doing, except that from the vetted information I gathered here, it’s clearly clean hydrogen.

Clean hydrogen without the colors

Houston-based Utility Global (UG) may have cracked the puzzle in the production of clean hydrogen without the traditional classifications defined by a color chart, with a technology that sidesteps the massive energy requirements plaguing conventional hydrogen production. While most clean hydrogen today requires enormous amounts of electricity to split water molecules—making it expensive and energy-intensive—UG’s H2Gen system flips the script entirely.

The company’s patented approach uses the energy already present in waste gases to drive the hydrogen production process. Instead of requiring external electricity, the system feeds on industrial off-gases from steel mills or methane-rich biogas from landfills and farms. The waste becomes the power source.

“It’s essentially getting hydrogen for free from streams that would otherwise be environmental liabilities,” explains the brochure on the technology’s core innovation. The solid oxide electrochemical reactor takes these low-value gas streams and uses their inherent energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen—all while capturing a concentrated stream of CO₂ that’s easier and cheaper to sequester than dispersed emissions.

So, steel mills belch out clouds of gas that typically get burned off as waste. Landfills release methane that contributes to climate change. Will this system convert these industrial byproducts into clean hydrogen fuel instead? Apparently yes.

The precision problem

But there’s a catch that makes this technology as much about engineering precision as chemical innovation. The electrochemical reactions inside Utility Global’s reactors are finicky. Temperature fluctuations of just a few degrees, pressure variations, or changes in the waste gas composition can throw off the entire process, compromising both efficiency and hydrogen purity.

Nothing that automation and probably AI can’t solve, I guess?

The industrial automation expert Rockwell Automation is providing its PlantPAx Distributed Control System to manage the H2Gen installations—essentially serving as the system’s nervous system. The partnership reflects a recognition that producing truly “clean” hydrogen isn’t just about the chemistry; it’s about maintaining that chemistry with surgical precision.

Rockwell’s automation platform continuously monitors dozens of process variables and makes real-time adjustments to keep the reactors humming in their optimal zone. A slight dip in feedstock quality? The system compensates. Temperature creeping up? Automatic adjustments kick in. This level of control isn’t just operational insurance—it’s what keeps the hydrogen “clean” by ensuring the process remains efficient and low-carbon.

Beyond the color wars

The hydrogen industry has become obsessed with color coding: green hydrogen from renewable electricity, blue from natural gas with carbon capture, grey from unabated fossil fuels. Utility Global’s approach doesn’t fit neatly into any of these categories, and that may be precisely the point.

When the UG system processes biogas from a landfill, it’s not just producing hydrogen—it’s preventing methane, a greenhouse gas roughly 25 times more potent than CO₂, from entering the atmosphere. The resulting hydrogen could actually have negative carbon intensity, making it cleaner than even traditional green hydrogen.

Feed it waste gas from a steel mill, and the system produces what’s best described as low-carbon hydrogen while helping the facility reduce its own emissions footprint. The environmental impact depends entirely on what goes in, creating a more nuanced and potentially more practical approach to decarbonization than the industry’s current color-coded thinking.

This flexibility could prove crucial as industries scramble to decarbonize. Rather than requiring massive renewable energy infrastructure or competing with other sectors for clean electricity, UG’s technology works with the waste streams that heavy industry is already producing.

Testing in Brazil and Korea

Here is a use case. ArcelorMittal, one of the world’s largest steel producers, tested UG’s technology to find out whether blast furnace waste can be transformed into clean hydrogen at its facility in Juiz de Fora, Brazil.

The H2Gen system uses the energy in steel mill off-gases to split water into hydrogen—without requiring external electricity. The project has entered front-end engineering design, aiming to produce up to 3 tons of hydrogen daily from waste that would otherwise be burned off.

For the Brazilian steelmaker, the appeal is circular: the hydrogen produced could replace natural gas in steelmaking processes, while the system’s concentrated CO₂ output makes carbon capture cheaper and simpler. The approach offers a potential pathway to reduce emissions without overhauling existing steel production infrastructure.

ArcelorMittal has invested $5 million in Utility Global through its XCarb Innovation Fund, which backs technologies that could significantly cut steelmaking emissions.

In Korea, UG partnered with Hanwha to assess the technical and economic feasibility of building a hydrogen production plant that utilizes biogas generated from South Korean wastewater treatment facilities. The supply of untreated water will be used as a feedstock for the H2Gen system. The hydrogen produced from biogas will be used in South Korea’s hydrogen-powered mobility sector and other clean energy applications.

The modular H2Gen system represents a pragmatic bet on industrial decarbonization for both companies. The Brazil project could demonstrate whether waste-to-hydrogen technology can scale across the steel industry’s global operations, while the Korean endeavor is a test case in wastewater treatment and management.