The race when it comes to clean and sustainable energy is indeed heating up, and it is a fact that green hydrogen is all set to take center stage.
This fuel, which happens to be versatile, happens to have the capacity to replace fossil fuels right from transportation to heavy industry- literally everything.
And the fact is that this is just one catch; generating green hydrogen in the phenomenal quantities that one needs has seemed kind of impossible because of its dependence on iridium, which is a super-rare metal.
However, a breakthrough from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science- CSRS in Japan can change just about everything.
Notably, their novel technique goes on to decrease the amount of iridium required in the production of green hydrogen by a whopping 95%, which is indeed a game-changer when it comes to scaling up this transformative tech.
What is Green hydrogen?
Hydrogen, which happens to be the most abundant element found across the universe, can be extracted from water by way of electrolysis, which is a process that happens to split water into hydrogen as well as oxygen. When it is used as fuel, hydrogen goes on to emit just water vapor, hence making it a zero-emissions source of energy.
The fact is that traditionally, extracting hydrogen from water needed significant energy, which was most often sourced from fossil fuels. That itself goes on to undermine the purpose of clean energy.
The point is that electrolysis, which is powered by renewable energy such as solar or wind, happens to offer a solution. This process gives out green hydrogen without leaving any carbon footprint.
Electrolysis, apparently, requires efficient catalysts, and the fact is that iridium, while being very highly effective, happens to be both rare and expensive, and all this goes on to make large-scale green hydrogen production expensive and at the same time pretty challenging.
Green hydrogen and its importance
As per the lead researcher of the study, Ryuhei Nakamura, one can very well expect their catalyst to get easily transferred to real-world applications, which means that the existing green hydrogen plants might as well get upgraded, thereby making the transition much smoother.
Reducing the amount of iridium results in decreased upfront costs, which enhances the competitiveness and appeal of green hydrogen for investment. The scarcity and high price of iridium pose significant challenges to the expansion of green hydrogen production.
This new technique greatly reduces the amount of iridium needed, making the entire process much more cost-effective to set up as well as operate.
As the cost of a technology decreases, it becomes an attractive investment opportunity. Lower upfront costs because of reduced iridium needs can also bring in a wider range of investors, thereby speeding-up funding as far as green hydrogen projects and development are concerned.
Hydrogen production with Iridium
The innovation of the RIKEN team lay in the fact that they mixed iridium with manganese oxide. Rather than making use of a large block of iridium, they isolated separate iridium atoms and, at the same time, strategically dispersed them throughout the surface of manganese oxide, which happens to be a more common metal. This kind of careful arrangement, as well as bonding, goes on to trigger chemical interactions that are indeed unique.
Apparently, this new catalyst happens to be achieving the same excellent hydrogen production rate just like pure iridium would, but with a fraction of the rare, expensive metal. All of this makes it a far more accessible as well as cost-effective solution.
When it comes to electrolysis, catalysts can go ahead and degrade with time, thereby lessening efficiency while at the same time increasing costs. This catalyst goes on to maintain a consistent performance for quite a remarkable duration- 3000 hours translates to more than four months of non-stop hydrogen production sans any loss in performance.
The oxidation states refer to the fact that how many electrons an atom has in a way lost or gained in a specific chemical bond. Researchers happen to believe that the iridium bonded along with manganese oxide goes on to achieve an unusual +6 oxidation state, which could very well be the reason behind its prominently elevated performance.
Transition that’s Speedier
This discovery has the potential to provide decades of time to focus on the development of sustainable catalysts using readily available metals. The fact is that after this, green hydrogen production would not rely on rare metals at all.
However, the process of creating effective catalysts with readily available metals is time-consuming work. This breakthrough helps to make significant progress in improving efficiency in terms of developing fully sustainable solutions for the future.
The point is that the global energy transition cannot happen right away. This technology offers a practical solution: it allows for a significant increase in green hydrogen production while at the same time giving options to refine catalysts that do not rely on rare metals.
The team happens to be already collaborating with industry experts so as to test their catalyst at scale. One can see this technology getting rolled out sooner rather than later.
Going ahead and partnering with industry players means gaining ground in a quick way, from the lab to testing across large-scale hydrogen production facilities. This goes on to prominently speed-up practical application.
If tests get successful, this tech can as well be integrated fairly quickly into the existing hydrogen production processes, which itself means that one might not have to wait for years or decades for the advantages.
It is well to be noted that the RIKEN catalyst is indeed great news; however, it happens to be one piece of a much larger puzzle. So as to bring forth green hydrogen’s potential, one requires that governments, companies, and investors go ahead and step up their funding in green hydrogen infra, right from production to distribution.
The fact is that green hydrogen will go on to work best when it is on par with other renewables such as solar and wind. Smart energy grids are indeed required to balance it all out.
There is an urgent need for industries to get incentives to switch, but so do individuals. Green hydrogen-powered vehicles or energy storage solutions can also become part of our daily lives in the future.
