Hydrogen as an energy carrier: Prospects and challenges

Abstract

This paper provides an insight to the feasibility of adopting hydrogen as a key energy carrier and fuel source in the near future. It is shown that hydrogen has several advantages, as well as few drawbacks in using for the above purposes. The research shows that hydrogen will be a key player in storing energy that is wasted at generation stage in large-scale power grids by off-peak diversion to dummy loads. The estimations show that by the year of 2050 there will be a hydrogen demand of over 42 million metric tons or 45 billion gallon gasoline equivalent (GGE) in the United States of America alone which can fuel up 342 million light-duty vehicles for 51 × 1011 miles (82 × 1011 km) travel per year. The production at distributed level has also been discussed. The paper also presents the levels of risk in production, storage and distribution stages and proposes possible techniques to address safety issues. It is shown that the storage in small to medium scale containers is much economical compared to doing the same at large-scale containers. The study concludes that hydrogen has a promising future to be a highly feasible energy carrier and energy source itself at consumer level.

Structure–property relationships in metal-organic frameworks for hydrogen storage

“…In Figure 5, the maximum hydrogen uptake of every MOF against the BET surface area divided by one thousand is plotted. Two linear fits were When calculating the differences between their molecular weights (no solvent) (in g mol IRMOF -1 [6,12] and maximum molar uptakes (in g H2 mol IRMOF -1 ), values of 8.01 and 7.97 % were found respectively. This indicates that the amino group found in IRMOF-3 linkers increases the molecular weight of the framework, with the increase being inversely proportional to its hydrogen uptake.…”

“…Among its benefits, hydrogen is the chemical fuel with the highest energy density by weight (after uranium and thorium), having a value of 142 MJ kg -1 , which is about three times more energy than gasoline and seven times more than coal per unit mass [5][6][7]. Furthermore, hydrogen can be obtained from water, a very abundant resource, which is more readily accessible than fossil fuels.…”

A Review on the Production and Purification of Biomass-Derived Hydrogen Using Emerging Membrane Technologies

“…Hydrogen energy systems started to attract noticeable attention during the energy crisis of the 1970s and have undergone immense development since then [2][3][4]. Hydrogen is considered a very promising energy carrier because of its advanced inherent properties, such as its high energy density of 14,300 J/(kg·K), long-term viability, environmentally friendly combustion products, and extensive resources [4][5][6]. Although hydrogen is the most abundant element on earth, it mostly exists in water and hydrocarbons, where it is bound to oxygen and carbon and hence not naturally ready to use [3][4][5][6].…”

“…Hydrogen is considered a very promising energy carrier because of its advanced inherent properties, such as its high energy density of 14,300 J/(kg·K), long-term viability, environmentally friendly combustion products, and extensive resources [4][5][6]. Although hydrogen is the most abundant element on earth, it mostly exists in water and hydrocarbons, where it is bound to oxygen and carbon and hence not naturally ready to use [3][4][5][6]. Therefore, different processes have been developed and utilized to produce pure hydrogen from various resources.…”

“…In addition to summarizing the recent development of hydrogen separation membranes, including their synthesis methods, hydrogen separation performance, etc., we also aim to assess the technical and economic feasibility of utilizing the available hydrogen separation membranes in biomass processing, which would potentially assist researchers and engineers in choosing the right membrane process for their biomass processing design. Unfortunately, fossil fuel is still the main resource used in the industry to produce hydrogen at this point in time, and over 90% of hydrogen in the US is manufactured from methane through steam reforming and water gas shift reaction (WGSR) processes, as shown in Equations (1) and (2) [4]. In this approach, methane and steam are first used to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and the generated CO can subsequently be converted to carbon dioxide while producing more hydrogen through the WGSR.…”