Hydrogen can be used as fuel in various ways, from powering homes, vehicles, and space shuttles. This versatility makes hydrogen an essential element of sustainability, and innovative uses continue to be developed regularly.
Here are just some of the most crucial hydrogen innovations coming in the next few years that will increase the use of this invaluable resource, improve our standard of living, and benefit the entire planet.
The state of hydrogen today
Hydrogen is the most abundant element on earth and has much potential for clean energy. The production process for hydrogen does not produce any greenhouse gases or particulates. There are several ways that hydrogen can be used to power vehicles, homes, and industrial facilities, including fuel cells and solar-powered electrolyzers.
Fuel cell vehicles are one of the most popular ways hydrogen is used today. An electrochemical reaction produces electricity when hydrogen mixes with oxygen inside a fuel cell. These vehicles have been shown to have greater efficiency than gas-powered cars.
The only byproduct of this type of vehicle is water vapor! Moreover, many believe fuel cells will become more efficient than batteries.
Current obstacles to large-scale hydrogen production
Hydrogen is an efficient and versatile fuel that can power cars, homes, and industries. However, several obstacles to large-scale hydrogen production must be addressed before it can become the future energy source.
- The main obstacle is cost-competitive hydrogen production from renewable sources like solar and wind power. Today's renewable technologies must be sufficiently advanced to provide cheap and unlimited hydrogen at the scale society requires.
- In addition, current renewable technologies require more land area than fossil fuels to produce equivalent amounts of energy, which presents a challenge when considering space limitations at many sites where we might want to use hydrogen as a fuel source - such as suburban or urban areas with high population density.
- There are also hurdles to developing commercially viable electrolyzers, a key component in generating hydrogen gas from electricity.
- One hurdle is improving their performance efficiency—today's most common commercial electrolyzers convert less than half of their input energy into hydrogen gas, which means you have to burn about twice as much natural gas for each kilogram of hydrogen generated by electrolysis.
- An additional hurdle is finding ways to make them smaller and cheaper. Hence, they're economical for home applications - currently, these units are too big, expensive, and inefficient for widespread residential use (although some researchers are working on systems that may change this).
- Another major problem for hydrogen is its low heat content - one kilogram of hydrogen has about twice the heating value of one kilogram of coal.
- Achieving higher concentrations will require a lot more investment in research and development.
- In the meantime, most proposed pathways rely on using low-temperature waste heat to generate hydrogen gas through catalytic reactions rather than directly burning natural gas or other hydrocarbons.
Projections for hydrogen production in 2023
A decade from now, many significant innovations will involve hydrogen production. Not only will hydrogen-powered cars be a common sight on the streets, but we'll also see homes and office buildings fueled by hydrogen.
Furthermore, we'll see more widespread use of renewable energy sources like solar power and wind to generate this fuel. For example, a car's fuel cell will convert the chemical energy of hydrogen gas into electrical energy, which then powers an electric motor that turns the wheels.
In the case of homes, electricity generated by solar panels or wind turbines will be used to extract hydrogen from water through electrolysis and store it as compressed gas in tanks or pipes.
Key players in the hydrogen economy
The most notable players in the hydrogen economy are Toyota and Hyundai. The two automakers have been working together on new technologies that will help reduce CO2 emissions and make our air cleaner. Toyota is the first company to introduce a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, followed by Hyundai's Tucson model.
Toyota has also been developing a hydrogen-powered forklift at their manufacturing plants, replacing the current diesel vehicles used at these facilities.
Hyundai's partnership with BMW might be one of the most exciting developments for eco-friendly cars: they plan to bring an all-electric or hybrid vehicle to market in 2020 and offer home battery systems later this year.
Implications of large-scale hydrogen production
Hydrogen-powered cars are the future of transportation. The technology is still new, but it's been tested and proven to work. We need to produce a lot of hydrogen to fuel cars and other machines with hydrogen.
Fortunately, there are innovations on the horizon that will make large-scale production of hydrogen much more feasible. One such innovation is called Nanotubes. These tiny tubes can store large amounts of hydrogen gas at room temperature.
This represents a significant breakthrough as it was previously only possible to store hydrogen gas at shallow temperatures (-260 degrees Celsius).
Another innovation involves attaching some nanoparticles (i.e., tiny particles) to some plastics; this makes them hydrophobic, which means they won't absorb any water or moisture.
When these hydrophobic plastics are in contact with water, they release their stored hydrogen gas (H2) and then change back into their hydrophilic state when the water has evaporated (hence 'hydro' meaning water; 'phile' meaning love or attraction to).
With these two innovations combined, we should be able to produce large volumes of renewable energy globally while solving many pressing environmental problems.
