Saudi Arabia

Photocatalysts lead vitally to water purifications and decarbonise environment each by wastewater treatment and hydrogen (H2 ) production as a renewable energy source from waterphotolysis. This work deals with the photocatalytic degradation of ciprofloxacin (CIP) and H2 production by novel silver-nanoparticle (AgNPs) based ternary-nanocomposites of thiolated reducegraphene oxide graphitic carbon nitride (AgNPs-S-rGO2%@g-C3N4 ) material. Herein the optimised balanced ratio of thiolated reduce-graphene oxide in prepared ternary-nanocomposites played matchlessly to enhance activity by increasing the charge carriers’ movements via slowing down charge-recombination ratios. Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) >2 wt.% or < 10 nm. Therefore AgNPs-S-rGO2%@g-C3N4 has 3772.5 µmolg−1 h −1 H2 production which is 6.43-fold higher than g-C3N4 having cyclic stability of 96% even after four consecutive cycles. The proposed mechanism for AgNPs-S-rGO2%@g-C3N4 revealed that the photo-excited electrons in the conduction-band of g-C3N4 react with the adhered water moieties to generate H2 .

The paper discusses some of the requirements drivers and resulting technological paths for manufacturers to develop hydrogen combustion engines for use in two types of market application – onroad heavy- and light-duty. One of the main requirements is legislative certainty and this has now been afforded – at least in the major market of Europe – by the European Union’s recent adoption into law of tailpipe emissions limits specifically designed to encourage the uptake of hydrogen engines in heavy-duty vehicles giving manufacturers the confidence they need to invest in productionized solutions to offer to customers. It then discusses combustion systems and boosting systems for the two market types emphasizing that heavy-duty vehicles need best efficiency throughout their operating map while light-duty ones since they are rarely operated at full load will mainly primarily need efficiency in the part-load region. This difference will likely cause a divergence in solutions with heavy-duty engines running very lean everywhere and light-duty ones likely operating at the stoichiometric air-fuel ratio at least for most of the map. The impacts of the strategies on engine systems and vehicle integration are discussed. It is postulated that due to reasons of preignition avoidance and efficiency hydrogen engines will rapidly adopt direct injection and that the long-term heavy-duty types will migrate towards the typical current spark-ignition-type cylinder head architecture where tumble rather than swirl will ultimately be needed for air motion in the cylinder for these reasons. They may also adopt active pre-chamber technology to ignite extremely lean mixtures for maximum efficiency and minimum emissions of oxides of nitrogen. It is suggested that light-duty engines will evolve less from their current gasoline architectural norm since they already contain all of the necessary fundamentals for hydrogen combustion. However since partload efficiency will be important some new strategies may become desirable. Developing dual-fuel light-duty engines could accelerate their uptake as the heavy-duty market simultaneously accelerates the creation of the fuel supply infrastructure. The likely technological evolution suggests that variable valve trains and specifically cam profile switching technology would be extremely useful for all types of hydrogen engine especially since they are readily available in different gasoline engines now. New operating strategies afforded by variable valve trains would benefit both heavy- and light-duty engines and these strategies will become more sophisticated. There will therefore likely be a convergence of technologies for the two markets albeit with some key differences maintained due to their vehicle applications and their differing operation in the field.

The global push for clean hydrogen production has identified nuclear energy particularly high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) as a promising solution due to their ability to provide high-temperature heat. This study conducted a techno-economic analysis of hydrogen production in Saudi Arabia using the pebble bed modular reactor (HTRPM) focusing on two methods: high-temperature steam electrolysis (HTSE) and the sulfur– iodine (SI) thermochemical cycle. The Hydrogen Economic Evaluation Program (HEEP) was used to assess the economic viability of both methods considering key production factors such as the discount rate nuclear power plant (NPP) capital cost and hydrogen plant efficiency. The results show that the SI cycle achieves a lower levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) at USD 1.22/kg H2 compared to HTSE at USD 1.47/kg H2 primarily due to higher thermal efficiency. Nonetheless HTSE offers simpler system integration. Sensitivity analysis reveals that variations in the discount rate and NPP capital costs significantly impact both production methods while hydrogen plant efficiency is crucial in determining overall economics. The findings contribute to the broader discourse on sustainable hydrogen production technologies by highlighting the potential of nuclear-driven methods to meet global decarbonization goals. The paper concludes that the HTR-PM offers a viable pathway for large-scale hydrogen production in Saudi Arabia aligning with the Vision 2030 objectives.

The conversion of solar to chemical energy is one of the central processes considered in the emerging renewable energy economy. Hydrogen production from water splitting over particulate semiconductor catalysts has often been proposed as a simple and a cost-effective method for largescale production. In this review we summarize the basic concepts of the overall water splitting (in the absence of sacrificial agents) using particulate photocatalysts with a focus on their synthetic methods and the role of the so-called “co-catalysts”. Then a focus is then given on improving light absorption in which the Z-scheme concept and the overall system efficiency are discussed. A section on reactor design and cost of the overall technology is given where the possibility of the different technologies to be deployed at a commercial scale and the considerable challenges ahead are discussed. To date the highest reported efficiency of any of these systems is at least one order of magnitude lower than that deserving consideration for practical applications.

Rapid industrialization is consuming too much energy and non-renewable energy resources are currently supplying the world’s majority of energy requirements. As a result the global energy mix is being pushed towards renewable and sustainable energy sources by the world’s future energy plan and climate change. Thus hydrogen has been suggested as a potential energy source for sustainable development. Currently the production of hydrogen from fossil fuels is dominant in the world and its utilization is increasing daily. As discussed in the paper a large amount of hydrogen is used in rocket engines oil refining ammonia production and many other processes. This paper also analyzes the environmental impacts of hydrogen utilization in various applications such as iron and steel production rocket engines ammonia production and hydrogenation. It is predicted that all of our fossil fuels will run out soon if we continue to consume them at our current pace of consumption. Hydrogen is only ecologically friendly when it is produced from renewable energy. Therefore a transition towards hydrogen production from renewable energy resources such as solar geothermal and wind is necessary. However many things need to be achieved before we can transition from a fossil-fuel-driven economy to one based on renewable energy

The global issue of climate change caused by humans and its inextricable linkage to our present and future energy demand presents the biggest challenge facing our globe. Hydrogen has been introduced as a new renewable energy resource. It is envisaged to be a crucial vector in the vast low-carbon transition to mitigate climate change minimize oil reliance reinforce energy security solve the intermittency of renewable energy resources and ameliorate energy performance in the transportation sector by using it in energy storage energy generation and transport sectors. Many technologies have been developed to generate hydrogen. The current paper presents a review of the current and developing technologies to produce hydrogen from fossil fuels and alternative resources like water and biomass. The results showed that reformation and gasification are the most mature and used technologies. However the weaknesses of these technologies include high energy consumption and high carbon emissions. Thermochemical water splitting biohydrogen and photo-electrolysis are long-term and clean technologies but they require more technical development and cost reduction to implement reformation technologies efficiently and on a large scale. A combination of water electrolysis with renewable energy resources is an ecofriendly method. Since hydrogen is viewed as a considerable game-changer for future fuels this paper also highlights the challenges facing hydrogen generation. Moreover an economic analysis of the technologies used to generate hydrogen is carried out in this study.

Hydrogen is a new promising energy source. Three operating parameters including inlet gas flow rate pH and impeller speed mainly determine the biohydrogen production from membrane bioreactor. The work aims to boost biohydrogen production by determining the optimal values of the control parameters. The proposed methodology contains two parts: modeling and parameter estimation. A robust ANIFS model to simulate a membrane bioreactor has been constructed for the modeling stage. Compared with RMS thanks to ANFIS the RMSE decreased from 2.89 using ANOVA to 0.0183 using ANFIS. Capturing the proper correlation between the inputs and output of the membrane bioreactor process system encourages the constructed ANFIS model to predict the output performance exactly. Then the optimal operating parameters were identified using the honey badger algorithm. During the optimization process inlet gas flow rate pH and impeller speed are used as decision variables whereas the biohydrogen production is the objective function required to be maximum. The integration between ANFIS and HBA boosted the hydrogen production yield from 23.8 L to 25.52 L increasing by 7.22%.

This study assesses the competitiveness of producing green hydrogen (H2) in Saudi Arabia and Germany using a power-to-carrier (P2X) model in PLEXOS for 2030 and beyond. The target amount of H2 to be produced serves as the only exogenous input allowing the model which runs on an hourly temporal resolution to endogenously optimize the electrolyzer technology (alkaline proton exchange membrane or solid oxide electrolyzer cell) the capacity of the electrolyzer to be built and the optimal carbon-free energy mix. Results suggest the overall investment needs in Saudi Arabia are approximately 25% lower than those for wind-based hydrogen production in Germany with the best-case scenario to produce 0.213 Mt of green H2 costing a net present value of $6.20 billion in Saudi Arabia compared to $8.11 billion in Germany. The findings indicate that alkaline electrolyzers dominate the production process favored for their low cost despite the higher efficiencies of other electrolyzer types. Moreover the model opts to dump excess energy rather than construct battery storage. Based on 16 scenarios the study determines a levelized cost of hydrogen of 2.34–3.08 $/kg for Saudi Arabia compared with 3.06–3.69 $/kg in Germany. Subsequently a detailed sensitivity analysis considers various discount rates for both countries. It is concluded that even when considering shipment costs from Saudi Arabia to Germany (~1 $/kg) green H2 can still be competitively delivered from Saudi Arabia to Germany.

The most challenging aspect of developing a green hydrogen economy is long-distance oceanic transportation. Hydrogen liquefaction is a transportation alternative. However the cost and energy consumption for liquefaction is currently prohibitively high creating a major barrier to hydrogen supply chains. This paper proposes using solid nitrogen or oxygen as a medium for recycling cold energy across the hydrogen liquefaction supply chain. When a liquid hydrogen (LH2) carrier reaches its destination the regasification process of the hydrogen produces solid nitrogen or oxygen. The solid nitrogen or oxygen is then transported in the LH2 carrier back to the hydrogen liquefaction facility and used to reduce the energy consumption cooling gaseous hydrogen. As a result the energy required to liquefy hydrogen can be reduced by 25.4% using N2 and 27.3% using O2. Solid air hydrogen liquefaction (SAHL) can be the missing link for implementing a global hydrogen economy.

High-temperature proton exchange membranes (HT-PEMs) for fuel cells are considered transformative technologies for efficient energy conversion particularly in hydrogen-based transportation owing to their ability to deliver high power density and operational efficiency in harsh environments. However several critical challenges limit their broader adoption notably the limited durability and high costs associated with core components such as membranes and electrocatalysts under elevated temperature conditions. This review systematically addresses these challenges by examining the role of engineered nanomaterials in overcoming performance and stability limitations. The potential of nanomaterials to improve catalytic activity proton conductivity and thermal stability is discussed in detail emphasizing their impact on the optimization of catalyst layer composition including catalysts binders phosphoric acid electrolytes and additives. Recent advancements in nanostructured assemblies and 3D morphologies are explored to enhance fuel cell efficiency through synergistic interactions of these components. Additionally ongoing issues such as catalyst degradation long-term stability and resistance to high-temperature operation are critically analyzed. This manuscript offers a comprehensive overview of current HT-PEMs research and proposes future material design strategies that could bridge the gap between laboratory prototypes and large-scale industrial applications.