Hydrogen: somewhere over the rainbow?
in radiators. This saves energy by lowering the average energy needed per household, consequently relieving some of the pressure from other, potentially unsustainable, energy sources making us less reliant on them. This is especially topical due to the worsening energy and cost of living crisis at the moment, due to our reliance on cheap Russian oil and gas. The fuel cell could also provide the solution to the seasonal issues of most other green energy sources. Solar panels, wind turbines, wave and tidal systems all rely on nature so suffer from intermittency. A hydrogen economy, a closed loop of energy production using hydrogen, can be set up using fuel cells and electrolysers (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Diagram illustrating the hydrogen economy (O'Hayre, et al., 2016)
Electrolysers work in reverse to fuel cells, using electricity to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. When renewable sources, like wind power, can function, the electricity produced can be fed into electrolysers to produce hydrogen for storage. If these renewable sources stop working, the hydrogen already generated can be fed into fuel cells to maintain the constant supply of electricity needed to meet the continuous demands of our energy hungry world. The water produced can be supplied back into electrolysers for reuse.
Conclusion
Having described a few applications of hydrogen, it is clear that there is huge potential though it is likely that we have only uncovered the tip of the iceberg. There are already a number of global energy projects and collaborations working on how we could further improve the hydrogen fuel cell technology in order to make it cheaper and more efficient. For example, implementing nanostructured catalysts which exhibit four-five times higher electrocatalytic activities than in existing pure, and expensive, platinum catalysts (Zhong, et al., 2010). With mounting pressures on governments to propose a solution to tackling climate change, it is only a matter of time before the attraction of hydrogen as an alternative fuel becomes too great an option to ignore and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow can become a reality.
Bibliography
Alverà, M., 2021. The Hydrogen Revolution. 1st ed. London: Hodder Studio Carrette, L., Friedrich, A. K. & Stimming, U., 2000. Fuel Cells: Principles, Types, Fuels, and Applications. ChemPhysChem, 1(4), pp. 162-193 Daily Mail, 2022. Climate changes puts nearly one in three species of all kinds at risk of extinction by 2100. [Online] Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11028385/Climate-changes-puts- nearly-one-three-species-risk-extinction-2100-study-shows.html [Accessed 15 August 2022] H21, 2022. H21 NIC - Phase 1. [Online] Available at: https://h21.green/projects/h21-nic-phase-1/ [Accessed 16 June 2022]
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