BEIJING -- A homegrown hydrogen internal combustion engine generator set has been put into commercial operation in Central China's Hubei province, contributing to exhaust gas treatment and the reduction of carbon emissions, the China Science Daily reported Wednesday.

The 300-kilowatt generator set -- the most powerful of its kind in China -- has been jointly developed by Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Yuchai Power and ONEST-POWER. It is designed to directly utilize hydrogen-rich industrial exhaust gas to generate electricity.

Industrial exhaust gas requires purification before it can be used for power generation. However, this generator can directly use hydrogen-rich exhaust gas, cutting purification costs by approximately 40 percent. It also boasts a power generation efficiency of over 42 percent.

During its trial operation in a chemical industrial park in Hubei, the generator set converted 500,000 standard cubic meters of waste hydrogen into 8 million kilowatt-hours of clean electricity, which is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 7,000 households.

It is estimated that one such generator set operating 6,000 hours annually can consume 1.4 million standard cubic meters of hydrogen and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1,362 tonnes per year -- equivalent to the carbon sequestration of 74,000 trees.

According to the developer, chemical industrial parks across China can recycle up to 4.5 million tonnes of by-product hydrogen annually. Even if only a portion of this hydrogen is used for power generation, such generator sets could make a substantial contribution to reducing CO2 emissions.