Hydrogen

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Seawater split to produce green hydrogen
Posted on Feb 1 2023 by Jessica Stanley
Waves in the ocean
https://www.adelaide.edu.au/newsroom/ne ... n-hydrogen

Researchers have successfully split seawater without pre-treatment to produce green hydrogen.

The international team was led by the University of Adelaide’s Professor Shizhang Qiao and Associate Professor Yao Zheng from the School of Chemical Engineering.

“We have split natural seawater into oxygen and hydrogen with nearly 100 per cent efficiency, to produce green hydrogen by electrolysis, using a non-precious and cheap catalyst in a commercial electrolyser,” said Professor Qiao.

A typical non-precious catalyst is cobalt oxide with chromium oxide on its surface.

“We used seawater as a feedstock without the need for any pre-treatment processes like reverse osmosis desolation, purification, or alkalisation,” said Associate Professor Zheng.

“The performance of a commercial electrolyser with our catalysts running in seawater is close to the performance of platinum/iridium catalysts running in a feedstock of highly purified deionised water.

Our work provides a solution to directly utilise seawater without pre-treatment systems and alkali addition, which shows similar performance as that of existing metal-based mature pure water electrolyser.
The University of Adelaide's Associate Professor Yao Zheng, researcher in the School of Chemical Engineering.



The team published their research in the journal Nature Energy.

“Current electrolysers are operated with highly purified water electrolyte. Increased demand for hydrogen to partially or totally replace energy generated by fossil fuels will significantly increase scarcity of increasingly limited freshwater resources,” said Associate Professor Zheng.

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Going small and thin for better hydrogen storage
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-small-thi ... orage.html
by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

A collaboration including scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Sandia National Laboratories, the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has created 3-4 nanometer ultrathin nanosheets of a metal hydride that increase hydrogen storage capacity. The research appears in the journal Small.

There is a need for sustainable energy storage technologies that can address the intermittent nature of renewable energy resources. Hydrogen-based technologies are promising long-term solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Hydrogen has the highest energy density of any fuel and is considered a viable solution for ground transportation, aircraft and marine vessels. However, hydrocarbon fuel sources outperform compressed hydrogen gas in terms of volumetric energy density, motivating the development of alternative, higher-density materials-based storage methods.

Complex metal hydrides are a class of hydrogen storage materials that while having high absolute storage capacity, can require extreme pressures and temperatures to achieve that capacity. The team tackled this challenge by nano-sizing, which increases the surface area to react with hydrogen and decreases the required depth of hydrogenation. Previous studies have analyzed nanoscale magnesium diboride (MgB2), including work by LLNL, however, the material in that study was not as thin and wound up clustering together.

The material created in this most recent collaboration came from solvent-free mechanical exfoliation in zirconia, yielding material that is only 11-12 atomic layers thick and can hydrogenate to about 50 times the capacity of the bulk material.

This 50-fold increase in the hydrogenation neatly corresponds to a 50-fold increase in the surface to volume ratio, suggesting that both the bulk and nanosheet material hydrogenate approximately the first two layers, a universal behavior independent of particle size. For two layers on either side of the 11-12-layer nanomaterial, this represents a third of the maximum hydrogen capacity of MgB2.

[wjfox]

Hydrogen to be pumped into main gas pipeline by 2025

13 February 2023 • 6:58pm

Hydrogen is to be pumped into Britain's main gas pipeline by 2025 as part of a scramble to ditch fossil fuels and move to net zero.

Between 2pc and 5pc of the fuel flowing through the country's transmission network will be hydrogen in two years under plans drawn up by National Gas, which owns the pipelines.

The blending would be the first step in plans to convert the network so that it can be filled entirely with hydrogen by 2050, as part of a national overhaul to cut carbon emissions.

Jon Butterworth, chief executive of National Gas, said: “What we’re trying to achieve is to make sure there’s a balanced response to energy.

“On a winter’s day, you’ve got seven times more energy going through the gas network than the electricity network.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... line-2025/

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How to make hydrogen straight from seawater – no desalination required
https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/media-rele ... n-seawater

Researchers have developed a cheaper and more energy-efficient way to make hydrogen directly from seawater, in a critical step towards a truly viable green hydrogen industry.

The new method from RMIT University researchers splits the seawater directly into hydrogen and oxygen – skipping the need for desalination and its associated cost, energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Hydrogen has long been touted as a clean future fuel and a potential solution to critical energy challenges, especially for industries that are harder to decarbonise like manufacturing, aviation and shipping.

[wjfox]

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Safety Technology for Hydrogen Infrastructure in Underground Space
February 27 , 2023

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) As an energy source that would help countries achieve carbon neutrality and energy security, hydrogen energy is being sought after globally as the energy source of the future. To this end, the European Union(EU) has introduced its strategy on hydrogen, implementing its plan to invest €470 billion(623 trillion Korean won) in 10 years to build a hydrogen-based society in the region. Germany, one of the most ardent supporters of global green initiatives, has put forward a national hydrogen strategy to invest a total of 1.2 trillion Korean won by 2030. The South Korean government is also investing in hydrogen city projects and infrastructure construction to inch closer to getting the hydrogen economy up and running.

The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT, President Kim Byung-suk) announced its plan to develop technologies pertaining to the entire course of an underground hydrogen infrastructure project, from its design and construction to its operation and management. Such technologies would fundamentally improve the safety of hydrogen facilities. The construction of new infrastructure in the CBD area may bring a more efficient integration with other renewable energy networks and help the development of source technologies for hydrogen infrastructure construction, technologies for which South Korea has depended on sourcing from other advanced countries.

Safe and reliable infrastructure is crucial to the establishment of a hydrogen ecosystem. However, any ground-level hydrogen facility project tends to face fierce opposition from local residents, and the alternative of building them peripherally makes the project less cost-effective and efficient.

Dr. Kim Yangkyun of the Hydrogen-infrastructure Research Cluster at KICT has developed the core safety engineering technologies for building reliable hydrogen infrastructure underground along with an active control system to mitigate the impact of possible hydrogen leaks and blasts. The new system can help control the ambient hydrogen concentration within an underground facility at all times via forced ventilation and can reduce risk up to 80% compared with similar above-ground facilities thanks to the introduction of roof-type vents that minimize blast overpressure in times of an emergency.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/980838

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Universal Hydrogen Takes to the Air with the Largest Hydrogen Fuel Cell Ever to Fly
by Mike Harris
March 2, 2023

Introduction:

(TechCrunch) As a Universal Hydrogen-branded plane, equipped with the largest hydrogen fuel cell ever to power an aircraft, made its maiden test flight in eastern Washington, co-founder and CEO Paul Eremenko declared the moment the dawn of a “new golden age of aviation.”

The 15-minute test flight of a modified Dash-8 aircraft was short, but it showed that hydrogen could be viable as a fuel for short-hop passenger aircraft. That is, if Universal Hydrogen — and others in the emerging world of hydrogen flight — can make the technical and regulatory progress needed to make it a mainstream product.

Dash-8s, a staple at regional airports, usually transport up to 50 passengers on short hops. The Dash-8 used in Thursday’s test flight from the Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake had decidedly different cargo. The Universal Hydrogen test plane, nicknamed Lightning McClean, had just two pilots, an engineer and a lot of tech onboard, including an electric motor and hydrogen fuel cell supplied by two other startups.

The stripped-down interior contained two racks of electronics and sensors, and two large hydrogen tanks with 30 kg of fuel. Beneath the plane’s right wing, an electric motor from magniX was being driven by the new hydrogen fuel cell from Plug Power. This system turns hydrogen into electricity and water — an emission-free powerplant that Eremenko believes represents the future of aviation.

The fuel cell operated throughout the flight, generating up to 800kW of power and producing nothing but water vapor and smiles on the faces of a crowd of Universal Hydrogen engineers and investors.

Read more here: https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/02/univ ... r-to-fly/

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Nine Mile Point Begins Clean Hydrogen Production
Source: Energy.Gov

Clean hydrogen production is underway at the Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station in Oswego, New York. The facility is the first-of-its-kind in the United States to generate clean hydrogen using nuclear power.

This nuclear milestone is part of a $14.5 million cost shared project between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Constellation to demonstrate how nuclear power plants can help lower the cost and scale-up the production of clean hydrogen.

Constellation will use the hydrogen generated on-site to help cool the power plant.

Demonstrating Clean Hydrogen Production

DOE supported the construction and installation of a low-temperature electrolysis system at the Nine Mile Point nuclear power plant that leverages the facility’s existing hydrogen storage system.

Constellation’s new Hydrogen Generation System produces hydrogen without emissions by using electricity generated at the plant to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

Read more: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nine ... production

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New composite material to create green hydrogen
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-composite ... rogen.html
by University of Twente

Researchers from the University of Twente developed a new composite material that outperforms the individual compounds by one to two orders of magnitude. The composite consists of several earth-abundant elements, that could potentially be used for efficient hydrogen generation without rare and precious metals like platinum. The researchers published their findings in the journal ACS Nano.

Green hydrogen is seen as the energy carrier of the future. Effectively, hydrogen offers a way to store (green) energy for long periods. This makes it especially important to produce it as efficiently as possible. Electrolysis of water is one of the most sustainable methods to produce green hydrogen. However, with current electrolysis methods, we need a lot of rare and expensive materials, or the process is not efficient enough.

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Researchers Devise New System for Turning Seawater Into Hydrogen Fuel
April 11, 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) Seawater’s mix of hydrogen, oxygen, sodium, and other elements makes it vital to life on Earth. But that same complex chemistry has made it difficult to extract hydrogen gas for clean energy uses.

Now, researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University with collaborators at the University of Oregon and Manchester Metropolitan University have found a way to tease hydrogen out of the ocean by funneling seawater through a double-membrane system and electricity. Their innovative design proved successful in generating hydrogen gas without producing large amounts of harmful byproducts. The results of their study, published today in Joule, could help advance efforts to produce low-carbon fuels.

“Many water-to-hydrogen systems today try to use a monolayer or single-layer membrane. Our study brought two layers together,” said Adam Nielander, an associate staff scientist with the SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis, a SLAC-Stanford joint institute. “These membrane architectures allowed us to control the way ions in seawater moved in our experiment.”

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/985748

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Green Hydrogen Company Ohmium Raises $250 Million
April 26, 2023

Introduction:

(AP via Courthouse News) — In what could prove a milestone for an industry that hopes to help address climate change, the Silicon Valley company Ohmium announced Wednesday it has raised $250 million to increase production of machines that can make clean hydrogen and displace fossil fuels.

Some climate experts say burning hydrogen can substitute for burning coal, oil or gas, for example in making steel or cement — without contributing to climate change. That's been largely theoretical, but real world examples are now growing.

Just four or five years ago, a company working on clean hydrogen from water would not have been able to raise several hundred million dollars, said Daryl Wilson, executive director of the Hydrogen Council. But now there’s rapid growth and demand for it, and a broader recognition that it’s key to addressing climate change, he said.

Mark Viehman, a hydrogen and clean fuels expert at the consulting firm Capgemini, called $250 million a “very impressive” fundraise, and said its own recent research found that 64% of energy and utility companies plan to put money into low-carbon hydrogen efforts by 2030.

Ohmium's role is to make electrolyzers, the devices that take water and split it into hydrogen and oxygen.

Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/climate ... es-250m/

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Scientists Reveal Breakthrough that Could Lead to Cleaner Hydrogen Energy
May 16 , 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) LAWRENCE — Chemists at the University of Kansas and U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have taken a big step toward splitting hydrogen and oxygen molecules to make pure hydrogen — without using fossil fuels.

Results from pulse radiolysis experiments have laid bare the complete reaction mechanism for an important group of “water-splitting” catalysts. The KU and Brookhaven work means scientists are closer to making pure hydrogen from renewable energy, an energy source that could contribute to a greener future for the nation and world.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/989461

[wjfox]

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Developing Technologies to Reduce the Cost of Green Hydrogen Production
June 2, 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) Green hydrogen, which produces hydrogen without the use of fossil fuels or the emission of carbon dioxide, has become increasingly important in recent years as part of efforts to realize a decarbonized economy. However, due to the high production cost of water electrolysis devices that produce green hydrogen, the economic feasibility of green hydrogen has not been very high. However, the development of a technology that drastically reduces the amount of rare metals such as iridium and platinum used in polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolysis devices is opening the way to lower production costs.

A research team led by Dr. Hyun S. Park and Sung Jong Yoo of the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Research Center at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced that they have developed a technology that can significantly reduce the amount of platinum and iridium, precious metals used in the electrode protection layer of polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolysis devices, and secure performance and durability on par with existing devices. In particular, unlike previous studies that focused on reducing the amount of iridium catalyst while maintaining the structure that uses a large amount of platinum and gold as the electrode protection layer, the researchers replaced the precious metal in the electrode protection layer with inexpensive iron nitride having large surface area and uniformly coated a small amount of iridium catalyst on top of it, greatly increasing the economic efficiency of the electrolysis device.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/991096

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Biden's Green Hydrogen Plan Hits Climate Obstacle: Water Shortage
July 3, 2023

Introduction:

(Reuters via USA News) - The Biden administration's climate agenda is facing an unexpected challenge in drought-prone Corpus Christi, Texas, where a proposed clean hydrogen hub would require the installation of energy-intensive, expensive and potentially environmentally damaging seawater desalination plants.

The Gulf Coast port is in the running for up to $1 billion available under President Joe Biden's 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to create a regional hub to produce hydrogen, a low-emissions fuel made by electrolyzing water that can help decarbonize heavy-emitting industries and transportation.

A hydrogen hub would require access to millions of gallons of water – a challenge in Corpus Christi which is experiencing a multi-year drought. While local officials say they can provide that water by constructing a seawater desalination plant, environmental groups and some local residents and lawmakers are lining up to oppose desalination sites.

"It makes no sense to create a purported clean energy source that in turn destroys an entire ecosystem, threatens other economies reliant upon a healthy bay system, and usurps the water supply for residents," the Coastal Alliance to Protect the Environment, a Corpus Christi activist group, wrote in a letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, shared with Reuters.

Reuters interviewed six researchers who study hydrogen as green power and had exclusive access to an analysis by Rystad Energy consultancy that showed that the Biden administration's vision of low-carbon hydrogen may run into a challenge that is itself exacerbated by climate change: water scarcity.

Read more here: https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/a ... -shorage

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Researchers discover safe, easy, and affordable way to store and retrieve hydrogen
https://phys.org/news/2023-07-safe-easy-hydrogen.html
by RIKEN

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) in Japan have discovered a compound that uses a chemical reaction to store ammonia, potentially offering a safer and easier way to store this important chemical.

This discovery, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on July 10, makes it possible not only to safely and conveniently store ammonia, but also the important hydrogen is carries. This finding should help lead the way to a decarbonized society with a practical hydrogen economy.

For society to make the switch from carbon-based to hydrogen-based energy, we need a safe way to store and transport hydrogen, which by itself is highly combustible. One way to do this is to store it as part of another molecule and extract it as needed. Ammonia, chemically written as NH3, makes a good hydrogen carrier because three hydrogen atoms are packed into each molecule, with almost 20% of ammonia being hydrogen by weight.

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Industry Wants New Hydrogen Pipeline on Navajo Land Scarred by Decades of Fossil Fuel Extraction
by Jerry Redfern
July 12, 2023

Introduction:

(Capital & Main) For the last several months, one of the nation’s largest pipeline operators has gone from one local government meeting on the Navajo Nation to another, outlining plans for what could end up being the country’s longest hydrogen pipeline. At those meetings, representatives from Tallgrass Energy have shown a map indicating the pipeline would run from Shiprock, New Mexico, in an arc across the northern reaches of the reservation to a spot north of Flagstaff, Arizona. And according to reports from others who attended the meetings, the final destination may actually be Mexico.

Tallgrass Energy, working through a new subsidiary called GreenView, wants to build the hydrogen pipeline because the Navajo Nation is “blessed with a wealth of natural resources” and “We believe they have the right and responsibility to develop and manage these resources, including projects like hydrogen,” says Tallgrass Vice President of Government Affairs Steven Davidson. He says that his company has been talking with the leaders of the Nation for the past two years, well before the local meetings began.

On the other side, Jessica Keetso (Diné) has traveled across the Nation herself for the past two years, explaining how the production of hydrogen from natural gas is yet another fossil fuel development in a land that has suffered from decades of climate, environmental and health problems brought about by energy extraction industries, including oil, coal, gas and uranium. She and her group, Tó Nizhóní Ání (“Sacred Water Speaks” in Navajo), bridle at the notion of the Nation once again becoming a resource development zone for the benefit of companies off the reservation.

This pipeline is a symbol of the ongoing controversies that already divide the Navajo Nation — and New Mexico — over fossil fuel development.

Read more here: https://capitalandmain.com/industry-wa ... xtraction

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Researchers Succeed in Producing Highly Efficient, Low-cost “Green” Hydrogen
July 17, 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert)

• The research team: “Today, the production of ‘green’ hydrogen requires distilled water and precious and rare metals such as platinum, which makes the green hydrogen up to 15 times more expensive than the polluting ‘grey’ one.

• “We hope that in the future it will be possible to employ our method commercially, to lower the costs, and to make the switch towards using green hydrogen in industry, agriculture, and as a clean energy source.”

Researchers from Tel Aviv University have succeeded in producing “green” hydrogen using green electricity — The hydrogen is produced without air pollution, with a high level of efficiency, utilizing a biocatalyst. Hydrogen is a necessary raw material for both agriculture and industry, but 95 percent of the hydrogen produced in the world today is “black” or “gray” — produced from coal or natural gas and emitting 9-12 tons of carbon dioxide for every ton of hydrogen.

The new method was developed by doctoral student Itzhak Grinberg and Dr. Oren Ben-Zvi, under the guidance of Prof. Iftach Yacoby of the School of Plant Sciences and Food Security at the Faculty of Life Sciences and Prof. Lihi Adler-Abramovich of the School of Dental Medicine and the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. The promising research results were published in the prominent journal Carbon Energy, focusing on advanced materials and technology for clean energy and CO2 emission reduction.

“Hydrogen is very rare in the atmosphere,” explains Itzhak Grinberg, “although it is produced by enzymes in microscopic organisms, which receive the energy for this from photosynthesis processes. In the lab, we “electrify” those enzymes, that is, an electrode provides the energy instead of the sun. The result is a particularly efficient process, with no demand for extreme conditions, that can utilize electricity from renewable sources such as solar panels or wind turbine. However, the enzyme ‘runs away’ from the electric charge, so it needs to be held in place through chemical treatment. We found a simple and efficient way to attach the enzyme to the electrode and utilize it.”

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/995772

For a technical presentation of the results of the study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/fu ... /cey2.411

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West Virginia University Researchers Are Developing Hydrogen Technology to Curtail Greenhouse Gases from Food and Beverage Industry
July 18, 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) Engineers and scientists at West Virginia University are developing an advanced hydrogen flexible boiler to help decarbonize the food and beverage industry and eventually eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.

The technology, proposed by Hailin Li, professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the WVU Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, will supply thermal energy by burning clean fuel rather than traditional fossil fuels. Researchers will also work with Morgantown businesses to achieve those objectives.

The project is funded by a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and is one of 40 such projects focused on the Biden administration’s goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

“The food industry is facing the challenge of how to diminish and eventually eliminate CO2 emissions,” Li said. “If industry leaders really want to achieve that goal by 2050, they have to either burn carbon free clean fuel or consume clean electricity.”

Traditionally, the food and beverage industry has consumed electricity and heat from fossil fuels — including natural gas — which releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. In response, Li’s team has developed a flexible fuel furnace that can burn pure hydrogen, a cleaner alternative, to produce hot water and steam for product processing.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/995992

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The future of hydrogen fuel: Developing a technique to analyze hydrogen fuel cell stability
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-08-fut ... -cell.html
by University of New South Wales

Scientists at the University of New South Wales Sydney are working on ways to improve the efficiency and cost of hydrogen fuel cells, to increase access to clean fuel.

Hydrogen has been positioned as a key player in the race to a decarbonized future, but despite its potential, the road to commercialization has been a slow one.

There are several factors that scientists—including Professor Chuan Zhao, Dr. Quentin Meyer and Mr. Shiyang Liu from the School of Chemistry at UNSW—are trying to address, to increase the commercial viability of hydrogen fuel cells.