OZ Minerals has partnered with Unearthed to encourage innovators to come up with safe ways of applying hydrogen in the mining value chain and help decarbonise its operations.

Hydrogen Hypothesis is a Think & Act Differently™ (TAD) initiative powered by OZ Minerals, the companies said. It is underlined by the miner’s strategic aspiration to eliminate Scope 1 emissions and strive to systematically reduce Scope 2 and 3 emissions across its value chain.

OZ Minerals explained: “The use of hydrogen as a green, low carbon energy source is one of the most widely explored subjects on the planet today. In our journey towards zero carbon emissions, OZ Minerals recognises the importance of hydrogen and we want to better understand the potential uses cases.”

This challenge invites innovators from inside and outside the mining sector, across the globe to propose safe experiments to demonstrate the role hydrogen could play in the mining value chain and help OZ Minerals learn how it can support a transition to low carbon emission operations, OZ Minerals said.

The challenge, open to companies, teams and individuals from any industry including mining, energy, aerospace, transportation and others, is looking for mature or early-stage hydrogen technologies and concepts that can be applied to mining.

Launched today, it has a final submission deadline of May 28.

OZ Minerals’ TAD incubator is a process and ecosystem designed to facilitate novel and challenging ideas that will accelerate the implementation of its strategy, the miner said.

“Our challenges are focused on themes aligned with our aspirations, namely Clean Products, Energy & Emissions, Waste & Water, Scalable & Adaptable Assets and Data & Technology,” it said. “The TAD process involves framing opportunities, diverging in our thinking to generate ideas, converging on experiments that we can use to test the best ideas, and then accelerating these experiments by providing funding, access to sites and support in developing ideas.”

As the challenge closes, select teams will be invited to participate in the TAD incubator’s Convergence and Accelerator phases, with the latter expected to run from June 28 onwards.