Here are some of our recent appearances discussing our research with the media:
A breath of oxygen: Rai Radio3 Scienza (Italy) - 30 July 2024
Programme available streaming online: click here.
Nel mezzo dell’oceano Pacifico, al largo del Messico, c’è una sorgente di ossigeno a una profondità dove la luce solare non può arrivare. Fino ad oggi, nessuno aveva mai osservato la produzione di ossigeno in un processo inorganico. In questo caso invece l’ossigeno è il risultato di una reazione chimica senza clorofilla, luce solare o batteri di sorta, che coinvolge i noduli di manganese posati sul fondale. Si aprono così nuovi scenari rispetto agli ambienti adatti a veder nascere la vita, sulla Terra e non solo. Ma l’ipotesi, peraltro remota, di una “nuova fonte di energia” significa anche il rischio di una corsa all’estrazione subacquea e quindi un pericolo per la tutela degli oceani: ne parliamo con Alberto Vitale Brovarone, geologo all’Università di Bologna, e con Donato Giovannelli, microbiologo all’Università Federico II di Napoli.
In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Mexico, there is a source of oxygen at a depth where sunlight cannot reach. Until now, no one had ever observed the production of oxygen in an inorganic process. In this case, however, oxygen is the result of a chemical reaction without chlorophyll, sunlight or bacteria of any kind, which involves manganese nodules lying on the seabed. This opens up new scenarios with respect to environments suitable for the birth of life, on Earth and beyond. But the hypothesis, albeit remote, of a “new source of energy” also means the risk of a rush to underwater extraction and therefore a danger for the protection of the oceans: we talk about it with Alberto Vitale Brovarone, geologist at the University of Bologna, and with Donato Giovannelli, microbiologist at the Federico II University of Naples.
From Bologna to the village of Nanortalik, an expedition to Greenland to discover the origins of white hydrogen: Corriere della Sera (Italy) - 5 July 2024
Article available online: click here.
A village in southwestern Greenland. The locals call it Nanortalik, which in Inuit means “land of bears”. But, moreso than bears, it is an element found underground that has captured the attention of scientists: hydrogen. Studying it will allow us to finally understand its origins. And, why not, maybe even new sustainable applications. This is the intuition behind the “ERC DeepSeep” project, in which the University of Bologna – under the guidance of Professor Alberto Vitale Brovarone (lecturer at the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences) – has been participating with an expedition since 24 June.
In the land of polar bears: Rai Radio3 Scienza (Italy) - 8 July 2024
Programme available streaming online: click here.
È partito il 26 giugno in barca da Nuuk, la capitale della Groenlandia, diretto al villaggio di Nanortalik, che in lingua inuit significa “dove vanno gli orsi polari”. Alberto Vitale Brovarone, geologo all’Università di Bologna, è a capo del progetto ERC DeepSeep, che questa volta l’ha condotto insieme al suo team tra i ghiacci groenlandesi alla ricerca di idrogeno geologico, formatosi miliardi di anni fa: sotto la calotta polare, le rocce conservano ancora l’idrogeno che potrebbe aver reso possibile lo sviluppo della vita sul nostro pianeta. E che oggi potrebbe essere una potenziale fonte di energia pulita, meglio nota come “idrogeno bianco”. Ci colleghiamo con il gruppo ancora sul campo, dopo una settimana tra gli iceberg alla deriva che hanno messo a rischio la missione. Anche Giulia Castellani, ricercatrice in scienze polari al Norwegian Polar Institute di Tromsø, conosce bene quegli ambienti ostili, vissuti a bordo della rompighiaccio Polarstern con la missione Mosaic.
He left on 26 June by boat from Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, headed for the village of Nanortalik, which in the Inuit language means “where polar bears go”. Alberto Vitale Brovarone, a geologist at the University of Bologna, is the head of the ERC DeepSeep project, which this time led him and his team into the Greenland ice in search of geological hydrogen, formed billions of years ago: under the polar ice cap, the rocks still preserve the hydrogen that could have made the development of life on our planet possible. And which today could be a potential source of clean energy, better known as “white hydrogen”. We connect with the group still in the field, after a week among the drifting icebergs that put the mission at risk. Giulia Castellani, a researcher in polar sciences at the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø, also knows those hostile environments well, having experienced them aboard the icebreaker Polarstern with the Mosaic mission.
Interview with RaiNews24 (Italy) - July 2024
Along the Greenland fjords, searching for hydrogen: Greenland Expedition Blog, hosted by ANSA (Italy) - 26 June 2024
Blog available online: click here.
In Greenland, we will search for traces of natural hydrogen, a geological molecule that has long eluded us, but is now becoming increasingly important for a sustainable energy future.
An Italian mission to Greenland to unravel the mysteries of natural hydrogen: La Repubblica Green & Blue (Italy) - 24 June 2024
Original article in Italian by Cristina Nadotti with Alberto Vitale Brovarone available here.
Little is known about the precious fuel, which forms in very ancient rocks. However, it is an indispensable element for the ecological transition. Vitale Brovarone, from the University of Bologna: “Now we are focusing above all on industrial hydrogen, but we will not be able to do without natural deposits.”
Technological research on how to produce green hydrogen is among the most active, as is research on how to safely and effectively transport and store this fuel, which is considered central to the ecological transition. Instead, relatively little is still known about natural hydrogen, the gas is generated in many places on Earth by the interaction between water and rock: it is precisely to gather information on how it could be exploited, that shortly, and weather conditions-permitting, a Italian mission to Greenland will be departing. It is led by Alberto Vitale Brovarone, professor at the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Bologna, and the research activities are carried out as part of the DeepSeep project, funded by the European Research Council (ERC).
The ERC DeepSeep project aims to better understand the genesis of natural hydrogen at great depths and at high pressure. The project also investigates the genesis of abiotic light hydrocarbons (other than ‘fossil’ hydrocarbons, which are of biological/biotic origin), in particular methane, through interactions between deep rocks and geological fluids in the Earth’s crust. Vitale Brovarone’s team searches for evidence of these processes in areas displaying the planet’s ancient geological history, brought to the surface by tectonic movements, such as within the Alps, Greenland, Mongolia, or North America.
For this mission the scholars will be based in the area of Nanortalik, a small village in Greenland whose name, in the Inuit language, means “where the polar bears go”. For two weeks, among the fjords off its coasts, the group made up of four scientists from the Deep Carbon Lab [Bologna], a researcher from the Institute of Geosciences and Georesources of the CNR, and one from the University of Copenhagen, will search for traces of the formation and circulation of natural hydrogen in rocks almost two billion years old. The interest in geological hydrogen does not arise only from its possible use as a clean energy source: better understanding its formation can help studies on the birth of life on our planet, since it is hypothesized that natural hydrogen could be a source of energy for primordial life forms. “Today we think that life on Earth developed by exploiting the energy of the Sun and the many ingredients present on the surface,” explains Vitale Brovarone, “but the same ingredients can be found inside the Earth’s crust: it is therefore possible that, by exploiting the energy produced by simple chemical reactions between deep rocks and water, from which hydrogen is also formed, life first developed inside the Earth’s crust and only later moved and evolved on the surface”.
There is therefore no doubt of the importance that research of this type can have for the possible extraction and exploitation of a fuel which, both when used in combustion engines and in fuel cells, does not produce polluting emissions, but only water. “Despite natural hydrogen increasingly emerging as a possible clean energy source for the future,” observes the geologist, “scientific knowledge on its formation and distribution is still very little. Greenland could be a unique place to investigate these processes, precisely because of the very ancient age of its rocks and their composition”. In fact, the expert explains that Greenland was chosen because “the age of the rocks there allows the specific process of radiolysis. Radiolysis is what is done industrially to produce hydrogen, splitting water molecules through natural radioactivity of the rocks that form the ancient continents. Investigations into the existence of natural hydrogen are something quite new”, continues the geologist, “so much so that engineers do not consider the exploitation of this energy source in their predictions for the future. Studies tell us that there is a lot of it, even in places where we didn’t imagine it. At the moment however, we are missing many essential elements to be able to make the most of it safely. We are making progress, but a lot of work is needed”.
In addition to the age of the rocks, there is another characteristic that makes Greenland a favoured study site. “We know that there are large deposits of graphite where we will work, an important element in the ecological transition for many reasons, among which one of the main ones is its use for the production of batteries. For our field of investigation, however, graphite is fundamental because the presence of carbon (Editor’s note: graphite is the most stable form of carbon present in nature in standard conditions) is what acts as a litmus test to make hydrogen more visible. In short, at Nanortalik we will find the indispensable conditions to understand better how hydrogen moves in depth and how it reacts. In fact, it is enough to identify where this fuel is located, but it is necessary to understand how to store it, transport it and, in short, use it safely”.
Vitale Brovarone insists on the many aspects inherent in his group’s research: “Many interests are moving towards the exploitation of natural hydrogen”, he says, “because, in the engineering field, if we still focus solely on industrially produced hydrogen, it is clear that we cannot do without hydrogen of geological origin as well. Nations such as the United States, Australia, the Philippines and many others are investing billions in research in this field and last year France included natural hydrogen in its plan for industrial decarbonization. As mentioned, however, we are still discovering the world of hydrogen, and above all many investigations are necessary to understand its reactivity with rocks and its possible conversion into molecules with very high global warming potential such as methane. In short, we must avoid its use going in the opposite direction to that of reducing climate-changing emissions. Another aspect that requires in-depth studies is the effect of hydrogen extraction or storage on the biosphere, on which in-depth studies are still underway and are still few. Caution, therefore, does not only concern the impact that the exploitation of natural hydrogen can have on the energy transition and the economy, but also its impact on the climate, which must also be explored“.
"Embrace the uncertainty": Five minutes with... podcast, Geoscientist magazine (GeolSoc London) - 20 May 2024
Podcast, transcript, and related magazine article are available online.
In this episode of 5 Minutes With, Marissa Lo speaks to Dr Kevin Wong, a postdoctoral research at the Deep Carbon Lab, University of Bologna, Italy.
The methane that carried us away: Rai Radio3 Scienza (Italy) - 13 March 2024
Il metano c’è, e ce n’è più del previsto. Ma in questo caso non è una cattiva notizia: si tratta di metano antico e potrebbe portare le tracce dell’origine della vita. Alberto Vitale Brovarone, geologo all’Università di Bologna a capo del progetto ERC DeepSeep, è tornato dalla Mongolia. La missione sul campo è servita a prelevare campioni che potrebbero spiegare reazioni chimiche del tempo profondo. Il metano di oggi però è tra i gas climalteranti che più impattano sulla crisi climatica: per arginarne le emissioni è fondamentale misurarle e individuare tutte le fonti. Lo farà MethaneSAT, il satellite di Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) Europe, che oltre a raccogliere dati con precisione senza precedenti li renderà disponibili online. Ci racconta tutto Flavia Sollazzo, direttrice senior per l’Europa per la transizione energetica di EDF.
Al microfono Marco Motta.
Methane is there, and there is more of it than expected. But in this case it’s not bad news: it’s ancient methane, and it could bear the traces of the origin of life. Alberto Vitale Brovarone, a geologist at the University of Bologna who heads the ERC DeepSeep project, has returned from Mongolia. The field mission was used to take samples that could explain chemical reactions from deep time. Today’s methane, however, is among the climate-altering gases most impacting the climate crisis: to curb its emissions, it is essential to measure them and identify all sources. This will be done by MethaneSAT, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) Europe satellite, which in addition to collecting data with unprecedented accuracy will make it available online. Flavia Sollazzo, senior director for Europe for energy transition at EDF, tells us all about it.
At the microphone Marco Motta.
The methane hunter: Where I Work, Nature Italy - 20 October 2023
Full interview by Anna Violato with Alberto Vitale Brovarone in English and Italian available here.
Plate tectonics works like a magician: it can bring deep rocks to the surface, like cards that move from the bottom of a deck to the top. When studying these rocks, you are transported into the world of geological carbon, and explore its links with life…
In search of lost methane: Rai Radio3 Scienza (Italy) - 28 July 2023
Per come lo conosciamo tutti, qui sulla Terra, il metano è di origine biotica: è generato dalla decomposizione di sostanze organiche, sepolte in profondità in tempi preistorici. Eppure il metano può formarsi anche in modo abiotico attraverso una semplice reazione chimica tra l’idrogeno e alcuni minerali della crosta terrestre, solo ad alte profondità e pressioni dove le placche oceaniche sprofondano sotto quelle terrestri. Secondo una moderna teoria, infatti, all’origine della vita sulla Terra ci sarebbe proprio il metano abiotico e il processo di subduzione. Da millenni il metano abiotico, silenziosamente, viene disperso in atmosfera e non riusciamo neanche a quantificarlo. C’è però chi – dalla Mongolia al Canada, dalla Norvegia alla Corsica – si muove tra i continenti alla ricerca dei segni lasciati da queste reazioni chimiche sulle rocce, per studiare e quantificare il rilascio di metano abiotico, come Alberto Vitale Brovarone, geologo del dipartimento di scienze biologiche, geologiche e ambientali dell’Università di Bologna, a capo del progetto ERC DeepSeep, il cui lavoro è documentato dal giornalista ambientale Jacopo Pasotti. Dai monti Altaj a Marte, dove è stata rilevata episodicamente la presenza di metano: abiotico o generato da batteri metanogeni? Lo chiediamo a Eleonora Ammannito, ricercatrice dell’Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) in campo planetologico.
Al microfono Elisabetta Tola.
As we know it, methane here on Earth is of biotic origin: it is generated by the decomposition of organic substances, buried deep in prehistoric times. However, methane can also form abiotically through a simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and some minerals of the Earth’s crust, only at high depths and pressures where the oceanic plates sink into the Earth. According to a modern theory, abiotic methane and the subduction process are at the origin of life on Earth. For millennia, abiotic methane has been silently dispersed into the atmosphere and we can’t even quantify it. However, there are those who travel between continents – from Mongolia to Canada, from Norway to Corsica – in search of the signs left by these chemical reactions in rocks in order to study and quantify the release of abiotic methane, like Alberto Vitale Brovarone, geologist of the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Bologna, head of the ERC DeepSeep project, whose work is documented by the environmental journalist Jacopo Pasotti. From the Altaj mountains to Mars, where the presence of methane has been occasionally detected: abiotic or generated by methanogenic bacteria? We ask Eleonora Ammannito, researcher of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in the planetary field.
At the microphone, Elisabetta Tola.
Among the energy resources present in nature, geological hydrogen is perhaps the most elusive. For a long time considered nothing more than an academic curiosity, today it is under the lens of the scientific, industrial and energy worlds. It is also for this increased interest that the geochemist Alberto Vitale Brovarone of the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences of the University of Bologna, with the DeepSeep project, funded by the European Research Council, is studying deep hydrogen.
The presence of methane and hydrogen of geological origin at great depths within the Earth, yet unlike traditional fossil fuels, was hypothesized more than a century ago. Now however, this hydrogen could play a role in the energy mix of the future: it is a natural and clean resource in fact. Vitale Brovarone explains: “By reacting with oxygen, molecular hydrogen triggers a combustion reaction that produces heat and water. Its combustion does not produce climate-altering gases, but water.”
Artificially produced hydrogen is already used, for example in the chemical industry. As an energy source, hydrogen is driving significant investment from the industrial energy sectors for electricity accumulation and production. Together with more discontinuous renewables, such as wind and solar energy, there is also the idea of using hydrogen as an energy reserve.
Unfortunately, commercial hydrogen is currently produced in a polluting way, either using fossil fuels, or using renewable energy at considerable expense.
Natural hydrogen, on the other hand, is renewed via a simple chemical reaction between some minerals and the most common geological fluid: water. It is probable that large reserves of hydrogen exist, continuously produced by geological processes that began billions of years ago with continental drift, and which will continue for billions of years more.
The project is also driven by curiosity about the origins of life on Earth. This energy source is tapped from a deep and mysterious biosphere within the Earth’s crust: a microbial ecosystem that neither knows sunlight, nor the scent of the air, but which may have been the cradle of life. It is so-called ‘basic research’, but research which can have economic and social repercussions.
“I believe that natural hydrogen, in the form of H2, will have to be exploited,” says Vitale Brovarone. “It is a molecule whose behavior in the geological world we still know little about, but we are convinced that there are large deposits of natural hydrogen. Molecular hydrogen moves very quickly within rocks and geological fluids, yet there is evidence that nature manages to produce and accumulate it in surprisingly large quantities. To understand its behavior we need to study what it has left behind in rocks.”
This molecule therefore continues to elude science but, as Vitale Brovarone says, “It is necessary to rapidly improve our knowledge of natural hydrogen, whether it is of geological origin or organic. This will still take time, and must go hand-in-hand with technological and industrial developments in hydrogen storage and use as an energy resource.”
A tiny and elusive molecule it therefore is, but, as the expert concludes, “Nature has already prepared it, avoiding industrial processes that make its manufacture impactful or complex”. It is therefore a question of finding stratagems in order for hydrogen to pass from geological curiosity to scientific knowledge.
Jacopo Pasotti
Here are some of our recent outreach activities:
Biosfera profonda, esplorazione di un ecosistema nascosto (Deep biosphere, exploring a hidden ecosystem).
Alberto Vitale Brovarone, Donato Giovannelli, Elena Panariello, and Jacopo Pasotti
Celato alla nostra vista, e che sta interessando sempre di più il mondo della ricerca, c’è un ecosistema di microorganismi che come biomassa è perfino superiore a quello della superficie. È un ecosistema “profondo” che potrebbe essere all’origine della vita come la conosciamo noi. Due giovani scienziati, vincitori di un grant ERC (European Research Council) si confronteranno in un incontro moderato sulle fonti di energia misteriose e profonde che possono essere alla base di una biosfera inscrutabile perché ben sotto la superficie terrestre, nelle rocce della crosta terrestre. Sono forme di vita estrema che potrebbero dire molto su forme di vita possibili su altri pianeti. Sebbene nascosto, l’ecosistema profondo è riconoscibile però anche in superficie, e i due scienziati, come esploratori, cercano in ogni continente le impronte di queste forme di vita e di questa energia profonda lasciate nelle rocce, nelle sorgenti d’acqua, nei fumi dei vulcani. Impronte che, messe insieme, stanno appunto svelando un mondo “sottosopra” degno di Stranger Things (ma non così ostile).
Hidden from our sight, and of increasing interest to the world of research, is an ecosystem of microorganisms with biomass even greater than surface life. It is a “deep” ecosystem that may be at the origin of life as we know it. Two young scientists, winners of an ERC (European Research Council) grant, will discuss in a moderated talk the mysterious and deep sources of energy that may underlie an inscrutable biosphere because they are well below the Earth’s surface, in the rocks of the Earth’s crust. These are life forms living at extreme conditions that may say much about possible life forms on other planets. Although hidden, the deep ecosystem is recognizable, however, even on the surface, and the two scientists, as explorers, search every continent for the imprints of these life forms and this deep energy left in rocks, in water sources, in volcano fumes. Footprints that, put together, are precisely revealing an “upside-down” world worthy of Stranger Things (but not so hostile).
The world beneath our feet: Festival della Scienza, Genova 2023
Il mondo sotto i nostri piedi (The world beneath our feet)
Meeting with Donato Giovannelli, Jacopo Pasotti, Alberto Vitale Brovarone, moderated by Elena Panariello.
Infographics and explainers
Here are some infographics and short explanatory texts showing what kind of research we do here at Deep Carbon Lab Bologna.
Who are we and what do we do?
This infographic illustrates the processes that we are interested in researching. Our work is centred on subduction systems, where oceanic crust enters the mantle. Water release during high-pressure metamorphism of the downgoing crust hydrates the overlying mantle, resulting in a reaction called serpentinization that generates hydrogen and methane.
Download this infographic (pdf)
- Download link for infographic in English
- Link per scaricare l’infografica in italiano
A short introduction to the hydrogen rainbow
The world of hydrogen as an energy source is manifold, and multicolor. The final product is the same, H2, but the ways it is generated are different, and each one has a cost both in terms of price and environmental impact. In the following paragraphs I will introduce the reader to all known forms of hydrogen, the latter one being the most important for me.
One of the most widespread types of hydrogen nowadays is brown hydrogen. It is produced by processing coal to very high temperature, which implies high energy costs of production. Using coal as a source implies that carbon is mobilized from the rock to the atmosphere, thus contributing to greenhouse gases emissions.
Then there are gray and turquoise hydrogen: like brown hydrogen, they are produced by breaking a carbon-rich compound, methane (CH4), but through two different processes. Here too, energy is needed, and carbon is emitted in the atmosphere. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, much more than carbon dioxide. For this reason, the conversion of methane to hydrogen and carbon dioxide is often presented as a clean energy solution. Better would be not to release methane from the ground in the first place.
Blue hydrogen follows: it uses the same processes as brown and gray hydrogen, but the carbon emitted is stored underground. It is a clever solution but still not very effective in practice.
The colorful rainbow of hydrogen doesn’t end here, there are still yellow, pink, and green hydrogen: in this case H2 is produced by breaking water (H2O) through the process called electrolysis. From first to last, using electricity from the grid, from nuclear processes, or from renewable sources. Carbon is not directly emitted from the process, but the energy needed to produce these types of hydrogen may derive from fossil carbon sources. Green hydrogen is certainly a very important target.
Finally, there is one type of hydrogen we start to hear about, more and more often: white hydrogen (or “gold hydrogen“). Nature itself has been producing it for billions of years and it is now available to us, trapped inside rocks. It is ready-made. Scientists also call it natural hydrogen. It is still commonly said that there is little or no natural hydrogen. A growing number of studies documenting studies documents its presence in very large quantities. Being ready-made, it does not require energy production or release of carbon into the atmosphere (extraction, transport, and storage costs are another topic).
In my laboratory we study exactly how white hydrogen is formed. This type of hydrogen could solve many energy problems, even though its study and exploration should be accompanied by technological developments for its distribution.