Spain

The production of hydrogen through water electrolysis is a promising pathway to decarbonize the energy sector. This paper presents a techno-economic model of electrolysis plants based on multiple states of operation: production hot standby and idle. The model enables the calculation of the optimal hourly dispatch of electrolyzers to produce hydrogen for different end uses. This model has been tested with real data from an existing installation and compared with a simpler electrolyzer model that is based on two states. The results indicate that an operational strategy that considers the multi-state model leads to a decrease in final hydrogen production costs. These reduced costs will benefit businesses especially while electrolysis plants grow in size to accommodate further increases in demand.

Magnesium hydride owns the largest share of publications on solid materials for hydrogen storage. The “Magnesium group” of international experts contributing to IEA Task 32 “Hydrogen Based Energy Storage” recently published two review papers presenting the activities of the group focused on magnesium hydride based materials and on Mg based compounds for hydrogen and energy storage. This review article not only overviews the latest activities on both fundamental aspects of Mg-based hydrides and their applications but also presents a historic overview on the topic and outlines projected future developments. Particular attention is paid to the theoretical and experimental studies of Mg-H system at extreme pressures kinetics and thermodynamics of the systems based on MgH₂ nanostructuring new Mg-based compounds and novel composites and catalysis in the Mg based H storage systems. Finally thermal energy storage and upscaled H storage systems accommodating MgH₂ are presented.

End-of-Life (EoL) technologies and strategies are needed to support the deployment of fuel cells and hydrogen (FCH) products. This article explores current and novel EoL technologies to recover valuable materials from the stacks of proton exchange membrane fuel cells and water electrolysers alkaline water electrolysers and solid oxide fuel cells. Current EoL technologies are mainly based on hydrometallurgical and pyro-hydrometallurgical methods for the recovery of noble metals while novel methods attempt to recover additional materials through efficient safe and cost-competitive pathways. Strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats of the reviewed EoL technologies are identified under techno-economic environmental and regulatory aspects. Beyond technologies strategies for the EoL of FCH stacks are defined mainly based on the role of manufacturers and recovery centres in the short- mid- and long-term. In this regard a dual role manufacturer/recovery centre would characterise long-term scenarios within a potential context of a well-established hydrogen economy.

Grand Canonical Monte Carlo GCMC simulations are used to study the gravimetric and volumetric hydrogen storage capacities of different carbon nanopores shapes: Slit-shaped nanotubes and torusenes at room temperature 298.15 K and at pressures between 0.1 and 35 MPa and for pore diameter or width between 4 and 15 A. The influence of the pore shape or curvature on the storage capacities as a function of pressure temperature and pore diameter is investigated and analyzed. A large curvature of the pores means in general an increase of the storage capacities of the pores. While torusenes and nanotubes have surfaces with more curvature than the slit-shaped planar pores their capacities are lower than those of the slit-shaped pores according to the present GCMC simulations. Torusene a less studied carbon nanostructure has two radii or curvatures but their storage capacities are similar or lower than those of nanotubes which have only one radius or curvature. The goal is to obtain qualitative and quantitative relationships between the structure of porous materials and the hydrogen storage capacities in particular or especially the relationship between shape and width of the pores and the hydrogen storage capacities of carbon-based porous materials.

The aim of this work is to study the effect of the displacement rate on the hydrogen embrittlement of two different structural steels grades used in energetic applications. With this purpose samples were pre-charged with gaseous hydrogen at 19.5 MPa and 450 °C for 21 h. Then fracture tests of the pre-charged specimens were performed using different displacement rates. It is showed that the lower is the displacement rate and the largest is the steel strength the strongest is the reduction of the fracture toughness due to the presence of internal hydrogen.

Continuous developments in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) make them a promising technology to achieve zero emissions in multiple applications including mobility. Incremental advancements in fuel cells materials and manufacture processes make them now suitable for commercialization. However the complex operation of fuel cell systems in automotive applications has some open issues yet. This work develops and compares three different controllers for PEMFC systems in automotive applications. All the controllers have a cascade control structure where a generator of setpoints sends references to the subsystems controllers with the objective to maximize operational efficiency. To develop the setpoints generators two techniques are evaluated: off-line optimization and Model Predictive Control (MPC). With the first technique the optimal setpoints are given by a map obtained off-line of the optimal steady state conditions and corresponding setpoints. With the second technique the setpoints time profiles that maximize the efficiency in an incoming time horizon are continuously computed. The proposed MPC architecture divides the fast and slow dynamics in order to reduce the computational cost. Two different MPC solutions have been implemented to deal with this fast/slow dynamics separation. After the integration of the setpoints generators with the subsystems controllers the different control systems are tested and compared using a dynamic detailed model of the automotive system in the INN-BALANCE project running under the New European Driving Cycle.

This paper presents a simplified procedure to analyse the Hydrogen Induced Cracking (HIC) of structural steels by means of the Small Punch Test (SPT). Two types of notched specimens were used: one with through-thickness lateral notch and another with surface longitudinal notch. The results for conventional specimens were compared with those for hydrogen pre-charged specimens. For this purpose two different methods to introduce hydrogen in the specimens were used: cathodic/electrochemical pre-charging and pressurized gaseous hydrogen pre-charging. The results obtained with both methods are also discussed.

This paper evaluates the economic viability of a combined wind-based green-hydrogen facility from an investor’s viewpoint. The paper introduces a theoretical model and demonstrates it by example. The valuation model assumes that both the spot price of electricity and wind capacity factor evolve stochastically over time; these state variables can in principle be correlated. Besides it explicitly considers the possibility to use curtailed wind energy for producing hydrogen. The model derives the investment project’s net present value (NPV) as a function of hydrogen price and conversion capacity. Thus the NPV is computed for a given price and a range of capacities. The one that leads to the maximum NPV is the ‘optimal’ capacity (for the given price). Next the authors estimate the parameters underlying the two stochastic processes from Spanish hourly data. These numerical estimates allow simulate hourly paths of both variables over the facility’s expected useful lifetime (30 years). According to the results green hydrogen production starts becoming economically viable above 3 €/kg. Besides it takes a hydrogen price of 4.7 €/kg to reach an optimal conversion capacity half the capacity of the wind park. The authors develop sensitivity analyses with respect to wind capacity factor curtailment rate and discount rate.

Synthetic fuels or e-fuels produced from captured CO2 and renewable hydrogen are envisaged as a feasible path towards a climate-neutral transportation in medium/heavy-duty and maritime sectors. EU is presently debating energy targets by 2030 for these fuels. As their production involves chemical processing of hydrogen it must be evaluated if the extra cost is worthy at least in applications where hydrogen use is possible. This manuscript focuses on the performance and environmental impact when hydrogen and methanol are fed to a heavy-duty compression-ignition engine working under dual-fuel combustion. The trade-off thermal efficiency-NOx emissions is primary considered in the assessment by combining both variables in an own defined function. During the work engine operating settings were adjusted to exploit the potential of methanol and hydrogen. Compared to conventional combustion methanol required centering the combustion towards TDC and doubling the EGR rate resulting in a low temperature highly premixed combustion almost soot-free and with extremely low NOx emissions. The best settings for hydrogen were in the middle of those for methanol and conventional combustion. Results showed great dependance with the engine load but methanol proved superior to hydrogen for all conditions. At high load 20–60 % methanol even improved the efficiency and reduced the NOx emissions obtained by conventional combustion. However at low load hydrogen could substitute 90 % of the diesel fuel while methanol failed at substitutions higher than 55 %.

In recent years growing interest has emerged in investigating the integration of energy storage and green hydrogen production systems with renewable energy generators. These integrated systems address uncertainties related to renewable resource availability and electricity prices mitigating profit loss caused by forecasting errors. This paper focuses on the operation of a hybrid farm (HF) combining an alkaline electrolyzer (AEL) and a battery energy storage system (BESS) with a wind turbine to form a comprehensive HF. The HF operates in both hydrogen and day-ahead electricity markets. A linear mathematical model is proposed to optimize energy management considering electrolyzer operation at partial loads and accounting for degradation costs while maintaining a straightforward formulation for power system optimization. Day-ahead market scheduling and real-time operation are formulated as a progressive mixed-integer linear program (MILP) extended to address uncertainties in wind speed and electricity prices through a two-stage stochastic optimization model. A bootstrap sampling strategy is introduced to enhance the stochastic model’s performance using the same sampled data. Results demonstrate how the strategies outperform traditional Monte Carlo and deterministic approaches in handling uncertainties increasing profits up to 4% per year. Additionally a simulation framework has been developed for validating this approach and conducting different case studies.

Hydrogen (H2) production combined with carbon capture and storage (CCS) is anticipated to be an important technology contributing to reduce the carbon footprint of current fossil-based H2 production systems. This work addresses for the first time the techno-environmental assessment of a CCS process based on the ionic liquid [Bmim][Acetate] for H2 production by steam methane reforming (SMR) and the comparison to conventional amine-based systems. Two different SMR plants using MDEA or [Bmim][Acetate] for CO2 capture were rigorously modelled using Aspen Plus to compute material and energy needs and emissions. Literature and simulation results were then used to perform a life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) of these processes based on the ReCiPe model. Solvent synthesis CCS process and hydrogen production stages were considered for the cradle-to-gate analysis. Results showed that although [Bmim][Acetate] is a priori more harmful to the environment than amines (in a kg-to-kg comparison) LCIAs carried out for both CCS processes showed from 5 to 17 % lower environmental impacts values for all estimated categories when using [Bmim][Acetate] due to a 9.4 % more energy-efficient performance than MDEA which also reduced a 17.4 % the total utility cost. Indeed if a typical amine loss rate of 1.6 kg/tCO2 is assumed the values of the environmental impacts increase up to 14 % for the IL-based CCS plant but still maintaining its favorable results over MDEA. As consequence the SMR plant with the IL-based CCS system exhibited 3–20 % lower values for most of the studied impact categories. These results contribute to shed some light on evaluating the sustainability of ILs with respect to conventional solvents for CO2 capture and to guide the synthesis of new more sustainable ILs but also they would be used to compare the environmental burdens from the synthesis and process performance of other promising ILs for CO2 capture that are not environmentally assed yet.

H2 production via membrane-assisted steam methane reforming (MA-SMR) can ensure higher energy efficiency and lower emissions compared to conventional reforming processes (SMR). Ceramic-supported Pd–Ag membranes have been extensively investigated for membrane-assisted steam methane reforming applications with outstanding performance. However costs sealings for integration in the reactor structure and resistance to solicitations remain challenging issues. In this work the surface quality of a low-cost porous Hastelloy-X filter is improved by asymmetric filling with α-Al2O3 of decreasing size and deposition of γ-Al2O3 as an interdiffusion barrier. On the modified support a thin Pd–Ag layer was deposited via electroless plating (ELP) resulting in a membrane with H2/N2 selectivity >10000. The permeation characteristics of the membrane were studied followed by testing for membrane-assisted methane steam reforming. The results showed the ability of the membrane reactor to overcome thermodynamic conversion of the conventional process for all explored operating conditions as well as ensuring 99.3% H2 purity in the permeate stream at 500 ◦C and 4 bar.

We analyze the use of hydrogen as a fuel for the automotive industry with the aim of decarbonizing the economy. Hydrogen is a suitable option for avoiding pollutant gas emissions developing environmentally friendly technologies replacing fossil fuels with clean renewable energies and complying with the Paris Agreement and Glasgow resolutions. In this sense renewable energies such as wind solar photovoltaic geothermal biomass etc. can be used to produce the necessary hydrogen to power vehicles. In this way the entire process from hydrogen production to its consumption as fuel will be 100% clean. If we are to meet future energy demands it is necessary to forecast the amount of hydrogen needed taking into account the facilities currently available and new ones that will be required for its generation storage and distribution. This paper presents a process for optimizing hydrogen production for the automotive industry that considers the amount of hydrogen needed the type of facilities from which it will be produced how the different sources of production are to be combined to achieve a competitive product and the potential environmental impacts of each energy source. It can serve as a frame of reference for the various actors in the hydropower and automotive industries so that more efficient designs can be planned for the gradual introduction of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs). The methodology implemented in this paper sets an optimization problem for minimizing energy production costs and reducing environmental impacts according to the source of energy production. The EU framework with respect to the decarbonization of the economy the percentages of the different types of energy sources used and the non-polluting vehicle fleet in the automotive sector will be considered.

Variable renewable energy (VRE) has seen rapid growth in recent years. However VRE deployment requires a fleet of dispatchable power plants to supply electricity during periods with limited wind and sunlight. These plants will operate at reduced utilization rates that pose serious economic challenges. To address this challenge this paper presents the techno-economic assessment of flexible power and hydrogen production from integrated gasification combined cycles (IGCC) employing the gas switching combustion (GSC) technology for CO₂ capture and membrane assisted water gas shift (MAWGS) reactors for hydrogen production. Three GSC-MAWGS-IGCC plants are evaluated based on different gasification technologies: Shell High Temperature Winkler and GE. These advanced plants are compared to two benchmark IGCC plants one without and one with CO₂ capture. All plants utilize state-of-the-art H-class gas turbines and hot gas clean-up for maximum efficiency. Under baseload operation the GSC plants returned CO₂ avoidance costs in the range of 24.9–36.9 €/ton compared to 44.3 €/ton for the benchmark. However the major advantage of these plants is evident in the more realistic mid-load scenario. Due to the ability to keep operating and sell hydrogen to the market during times of abundant wind and sun the best GSC plants offer a 6–11%-point higher annual rate of return than the benchmark plant with CO₂ capture. This large economic advantage shows that the flexible GSC plants are a promising option for balancing VRE provided a market for the generated clean hydrogen exists.

Commonly used materials constituting the core components of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) including the balance‐of‐plant were classified according to the EU criticality methodology with an additional assessment of hazardousness and price. A life‐cycle assessment (LCA) of the materials potentially present in PEMFC systems was performed for 1  g of each material. To demonstrate the importance of appropriate actions at the end of life (EoL) for critical materials a LCA study of the whole life cycle for a 1‐kW PEMFC system and 20000 operating hours was performed. In addition to the manufacturing phase four different scenarios of hydrogen production were analyzed. In the EoL phase recycling was used as a primary strategy with energy extraction and landfill as the second and third. The environmental impacts for 1 g of material show that platinum group metals and precious metals have by far the largest environmental impact; therefore it is necessary to pay special attention to these materials in the EoL phase. The LCA results for the 1‐kW PEMFC system show that in the manufacturing phase the major environmental impacts come from the fuel cell stack where the majority of the critical materials are used. Analysis shows that only 0.75 g of platinum in the manufacturing phase contributes on average 60% of the total environmental impacts of the manufacturing phase. In the operating phase environmentally sounder scenarios are the hydrogen production with water electrolysis using hydroelectricity and natural gas reforming. These two scenarios have lower absolute values for the environmental impact indicators on average compared with the manufacturing phase of the 1‐kW PEMFC system. With proper recycling strategies in the EoL phase for each material and by paying a lot of attention to the critical materials the environmental impacts could be reduced on average by 37.3% for the manufacturing phase and 23.7% for the entire life cycle of the 1‐kW PEMFC system.

The present research work deals with prediction of hydrogen consumption of a fuel cell in an energy storage system. Due to the fact that these kind of systems have a very nonlinear behaviour the use of traditional techniques based on parametric models and other more sophisticated techniques such as soft computing methods seems not to be accurate enough to generate good models of the system under study. Due to that a hybrid intelligent system based on clustering and regression techniques has been developed and implemented to predict the necessary variation of the hydrogen flow consumption to satisfy the variation of demanded power to the fuel cell. In this research a hybrid intelligent model was created and validated over a dataset from a fuel cell energy storage system. Obtained results validate the proposal achieving better performance than other well-known classical regression methods allowing us to predict the hydrogen consumption with a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 3.73 with the validation dataset.

Today in the field of energy the main goal is to reduce emissions with 7 the aim of maintaining a clean environment. To reduce energy consumption 8 from fossil fuels new tools for micro-grids have been proposed. In the context 9 of multi-vector energy management systems the present work proposes an 10 optimal scheduler based on genetic algorithms to manage flexible assets in the 11 energy system such as energy storage and manageable demand. This tool is 12 applied to a case study for a Spanish technology park (360 kW consumption 13 peak) with photovoltaic and wind generation (735 kW generation peak) 14 hydrogen production (15 kW) and electric and fuel cell charging stations. 15 It provides an hourly day-ahead scheduling for the existing flexible assets: 16 the electrolyser the electric vehicle charging station the hydrogen refuelling 17 station and the heating ventilation and air conditioning system in one 18 building of the park. 19 A set of experiments is carried out over a period of 14 days using real 20 data and performing computations in real time in order to test and validate 21 the tool. The analysis of results show that the solution maximises the use of 22 local renewable energy production (demand is shifted to those hours when 23 there is a surplus of generation) which means a reduction in energy costs 24 whereas the computational cost allows the implementation of the tool in real 25 time.

Alternatives to cope with the challenges of high shares of renewable electricity in power systems have been addressed from different approaches such as energy storage and low-carbon technologies. However no model has previously considered integrating these technologies under stability requirements and different climate conditions. In this study we include this approach to analyse the role of new technologies to decarbonise the power system. The Spanish power system is modelled to provide insights for future applications in other regions. After including storage and low-carbon technologies (currently available and under development) batteries and hydrogen fuel cells have low penetration and the derived emission reduction is negligible in all scenarios. Compressed air storage would have a limited role in the short term but its performance improves in the long term. Flexible generation technologies based on hydrogen turbines and long-duration storage would allow the greatest decarbonisation providing stability and covering up to 11–14 % of demand in the short and long term. The hydrogen storage requirement is equivalent to 18 days of average demand (well below the theoretical storage potential in the region). When these solutions are considered decarbonising the electricity system (achieving Paris targets) is possible without a significant increase in system costs (< € 114/MWh).

Water electrolysis to obtain hydrogen in combination with intermittent renewable energy resources is an emerging sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. Among the available electrolyzer technologies anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE) has been paid much attention because of its advantageous behavior compared to other more traditional approaches such as solid oxide electrolyzer cells and alkaline or proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers. Recently very promising results have been obtained in the AEMWE technology. This review paper is focused on recent advances in membrane electrode assembly components paying particular attention to the preparation methods for catalyst coated on gas diffusion layers which has not been previously reported in the literature for this type of electrolyzers. The most successful methodologies utilized for the preparation of catalysts including co-precipitation electrodeposition sol–gel hydrothermal chemical vapor deposition atomic layer deposition ion beam sputtering and magnetron sputtering deposition techniques have been detailed. Besides a description of these procedures in this review we also present a critical appraisal of the efficiency of the water electrolysis carried out with cells fitted with electrodes prepared with these procedures. Based on this analysis a critical comparison of cell performance is carried out and future prospects and expected developments of the AEMWE are discussed.

Green hydrogen—a carbon-free renewable fuel—has the capability to decarbonise a variety of sectors. The generation of green hydrogen is currently restricted to water electrolysers. The use of freshwater resources and critical raw materials however limits their use. Alternative water splitting methods for green hydrogen generation via photocatalysis and photoelectrocatalysis (PEC) have been explored in the past few decades; however their commercial potential still remains unexploited due to the high hydrogen generation costs. Novel PEC-based simultaneous generation of green hydrogen and wastewater treatment/high-value product production is therefore seen as an alternative to conventional water splitting. Interestingly the organic/inorganic pollutants in wastewater and biomass favourably act as electron donors and facilitate the dual-functional process of recovering green hydrogen while oxidising the organic matter. The generation of green hydrogen through the dual-functional PEC process opens up opportunities for a “circular economy”. It further enables the end-of-life commodities to be reused recycled and resourced for a better life-cycle design while being economically viable for commercialisation. This review brings together and critically analyses the recent trends towards simultaneous wastewater treatment/biomass reforming while generating hydrogen gas by employing the PEC technology. We have briefly discussed the technical challenges associated with the tandem PEC process new avenues techno-economic feasibility and future directions towards achieving net neutrality.

Green hydrogen produced by water electrolysis with renewable energy plays a crucial role in the revolution towards energy sustainability and it is considered a key source of clean energy and efficient storage. Its ability to address the intermittency of renewable sources and its potential to decarbonize sectors that are difficult to electrify make it a strategic component in climate change mitigation. By using a method based on a bibliometric review of scientific publications this paper represents a significant contribution to the emerging field of research on green hydrogen and provides a detailed review of electrolyzer technologies identifying key areas for future research and technology development. The results reflect the immaturity of a technology which advances with different technical advancements waiting to find the optimal technical solution that allows for its massive implementation as a source of green hydrogen generation. According to the results found in this article alkaline (ALK) and proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzers seem to be the ones that interest the scientific community the most. Similarly in terms of regional analysis Europe is clearly committed to green hydrogen in view of the analysis of its scientific results on materials and electrolyzer capacity forecasts for 2030.

Europe has set ambitious targets to reduce the final energy consumption of buildings in concerning the degree of electrification energy efficiency and penetration of renewable energy sources (RES). So far hydrogen is becoming an increasingly important energy vector offering huge opportunities to promote the share of intermittent RES. Thus this manuscript proposes an energy model for the complete decarbonization of the estimated electricity consumed by the Spanish building stock in 2030 and 2050 scenarios; the model is based on the combination of photovoltaic and wind primary sources and hydrogen technologies considering both distributed and centralized configurations applying also geospatial criteria for their optimal allocation. Large-scale RES generation centralized hydrogen production and re-electrification along with underground hydrogen storage result in the lowest levelized cost of energy (LCOE) hydrogen production costs (HPC) and the highest overall efficiency (μSYS). Wind energy is mainly harvested in the north of Spain while large PV farms are deployed in the mid-south. Furthermore reinforcement of underground hydrogen storage enhances the overall system performance reducing surplus energy and the required RES generation capacity. Finally all the considered scenarios achieve LCOE below the Spanish utility grid benchmark apart from accomplishing the decarbonization goals established for the year 2030.

The transition to energy systems with a high share of renewable energy depends on the availability of technologies that can connect the physical distances or bridge the time differences between the energy supply and demand points. This study focuses on energy storage technologies due to their expected role in liberating the energy sector from fossil fuels and facilitating the penetration of intermittent renewable sources. The performance of 27 energy storage alternatives is compared considering sustainability aspects by means of data envelopment analysis. To this end storage alternatives are first classified into two clusters: fast-response and long-term. The levelized cost of energy energy and water consumption global warming potential and employment are common indicators considered for both clusters while energy density is used only for fast-response technologies where it plays a key role in technology selection. Flywheel reveals the highest efficiency between all the fast-response technologies while green ammonia powered with solar energy ranks first for long-term energy storage. An uncertainty analysis is incorporated to discuss the reliability of the results. Overall results obtained and guidelines provided can be helpful for both decision-making and research and development purposes. For the former we identify the most appealing energy storage options to be promoted while for the latter we report quantitative improvement targets that would make inefficient technologies competitive if attained. This contribution paves the way for more comprehensive studies in the context of energy storage by presenting a powerful framework for comparing options according to multiple sustainability indicators.

Urban population and the trend towards online commerce leads to an increase in delivery solution in cities. The growth of the transport sector is very harmful to the environment being responsible for approximately 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union. The problem is aggravated when transporting perishable foodstuffs as the vehicle propulsion engine (VPE) must power not only the vehicle but also the refrigeration unit. This means that the VPE must be running continuously both on the road and stationary (during delivery) as the cold chain must be preserved. The result is costly (high fuel consumption) and harmful to the environment. At present refrigerated transport does not support full-electric solutions due to the high energy consumption required which motivates the work presented in this article. It presents a turnkey solution of a hydrogen-powered refrigeration system (HPRS) to be integrated into standard light trucks and vans for short-distance food transport and delivery. The proposed solution combines an air-cooled polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) a lithium-ion battery and low-weight pressurised hydrogen cylinders to minimise cost and increase autonomy and energy density. In addition for its implementation and integration all the acquisition power and control electronics necessary for its correct management have been developed. Similarly an energy management system (EMS) has been developed to ensure continuity and safety in the operation of the electrical system during the working day while maximizing both the available output power and lifetime of the PEMFC. Experimental results on a real refrigerated light truck provide more than 4 h of autonomy in intensive intercity driving profiles which can be increased if necessary by simply increasing the pressure of the stored hydrogen from the current 200 bar to whatever is required. The correct operation of the entire HPRS has been experimentally validated in terms of functionality autonomy and safety; with fuel savings of more than 10% and more than 3650 kg of CO2/ year avoided.

A potential method of storing and transporting hydrogen safely in a cost-effective and practical way involves the utilization of molecules that contain hydrogen in their structure such as ammonia. Because of its high hydrogen content and carbon-free molecular structure as well as the maturity of related technology (easy liquefaction) ammonia has gained attention as a “hydrogen carrier” for the generation of energy. Unfortunately hydrogen production from ammonia requires an efficient catalyst to achieve high conversion at low reaction temperatures. Recently very attractive results have been obtained with low-surface-area materials. This review paper is focused on summarizing and comparing recent advances in novel economic and active catalysts for this reaction paying particular attention to materials with low surface area such as silicon carbide (SiC) and perovskites (ABO3 structure). The effects of the supports the active phase and the addition of promoters in such low-porosity materials have been analyzed in detail. Advances in adequate catalytic systems (including support and active metal) benefit the perspective of ammonia as a hydrogen carrier for the decarbonization of the energy sector and accelerate the “hydrogen economy”.