Tinkering with the potential of Hydrogen Economy

The ‘Hydrogen Economy’, deemed as "the next big thing", is of great interest to me. Countries with a hydrogen strategy doubled last year to 26 and expected plans from the U.S., Brazil, India, and China could potentially reshape the global market, according to BloombergNEF.

During 9th grade (2019), I planned to research the possible ways we could increase the production of hydrogen for industrial purposes by using hydrolysis. But here was the twist: instead of using freshwater, what were the chances of finding a way to use seawater in an altered state? Scarce bodies of freshwater that once had the potential threat of getting depleted would then be safe. Simultaneously, the doors to obtaining various essential elements like Sodium and Chlorine through the hydrolysis of seawater would become wide open. Turns out, it is highly possible.

In the near future, green hydrogen will replace fossil fuels to provide energy for almost everything, from cars to buildings. However, producing global hydrogen could strain freshwater sources for drinking and use in numerous industrial processes. Due to its large reserves, the electrolysis of salt water to produce green H2 by renewable electricity is now considered a promising contender for sustainable energy.

On-going Research

Researchers at Swinburne University of Technology’s Centre for Translational Atomaterials have developed a robust single-atom platinum catalyst that can produce high-performance solar light-triggered hydrogen from seawater. They have developed a prototype device using this catalyst, known as the ‘Ocean-H2-Rig’.

Harvard researchers successfully used forward osmosis to separate salt water into clean hydrogen and oxygen gas. They created hydrogen gas by forward-osmosis and electrochemical water splitting, which is useful for storing renewable energy.

Researchers led by Evan Pugh and Bruce Logan succeeded in splitting seawater to produce green hydrogen. The pre-desalination procedure in this process is costly. However, the team has reduced the cost by employing a thin semi-permeable membrane to filter water in reverse osmosis treatment.

Many other leading institutions have conducted ground-breaking research to make hydrolysis of saltwater as convenient as possible.

The Problem

Hydrogen is one of the cleanest fuels with great potential. Although, one major drawback it could face as a fuel is its transportation and storage. Because hydrogen has a relatively low volumetric energy density, its transportation, storage, and final delivery to the point of use comprise a significant cost and result in some of the energy inefficiencies associated with using it as an energy carrier. Hydrogen has a good energy density by weight, but very poor energy density by volume (i.e very low volumetric density ). Hydrogen must be made more energy dense to be useful for transportation. There are three ways to do this. Hydrogen can be compressed, liquefied, or chemically combined.

The property of absorption of hydrogen on transition metals is widely used in catalytic reduction/hydrogenation reactions for the preparation of a large number of compounds. Some of the metals accommodate a very large volume of hydrogen and, therefore, can be used as storage media. This property has a high potential for hydrogen storage as a source of energy and I am enthusiastic about digging deeper into it.

-Anon