A student team from The University of Texas at Austin took first place in the inaugural Blue Hydrogen Student Design Competition, held on 2 May. The event brought together more than 200 students from three Texas universities—UT Austin, UT San Antonio, and the University of Houston—tasked with designing a blue hydrogen production process. Known as “Project BIA,” the competition required teams to solve for the production of 250 MMscf/D of hydrogen, ensure more than 90% CO2 capture for sequestration, and address safety, operational, and environmental risks.
The competition was conceived through a collaboration between UT Austin Associate Professor of Practice David T. Dalle Molle and Professor Brian Korgel, director of UT’s Energy Institute and a leader in Texas’s hydrogen policy efforts. Korgel emphasized the importance of training students to create sustainable energy solutions and praised the competition for positioning Texas as a leader in hydrogen technology.
The top three teams from each school advanced to the final presentation round, judged by a panel of industry professionals from Air Products, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Dow, ExxonMobil, and Technip Energies.
"The winning team successfully addressed the judges' questions, so much so that they ran out of questions because the team did such a great job addressing the problem in their formal presentation," said Dalle Molle.
In total, $7,000 in prizes were awarded to top-performing teams.