United States

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is a promising technology for solar hydrogen production to build a sustainable renewable and clean energy economy. Given the complexity of the PEC water splitting processes it is important to note that developing in-situ techniques for studying PEC water splitting presents a formidable challenge. This review is aimed at highlighting advantages and disadvantages of each technique while offering a pathway of potentially combining several techniques to address different aspects of interfacial processes in PEC water splitting. We reviewed recent progress in various techniques and approaches utilized to study PEC water splitting focusing on spectroscopic and scanning-probe methods.

The European Community requires a vehicle-level bonfire test for vehicles using plastic fuel tanks for conventional fuels (ECE R-34 Annex 5). A similar test could be applied to hydrogen-fuelled vehicles. It would test a realistic vehicle with its complete fuel and safety systems. An advantage of such a test is that the same test could be applied independent of the hydrogen storage technology (compressed gas liquid or hydride). There are currently standards for bonfire testing of a bare Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) tank and its Pressure Relief Device (PRD). This standard is FMVSS 304 in the U.S. and ISO 15869-1 in Europe. Japan has a similar standard. It requires that a bare tank and its associated PRD be subjected to a propane flame for 20 minutes. The tank must either survive or safely vent its contents. No modern composite wound tank is expected to survive for 20 minutes – so this is not a tank test but really a PRD test. The test procedure requires the PRD to be shielded from direct impingement of the flames – but the shield is not well specified. If it shields the PRD too well the PRD will not activate and the tank will burst. This paper describes the results of a CNG and a hydrogen tank burst from such tests. The mechanical energy released is enormous. It is simply unacceptable to allow the tank to burst – the PRD and venting system must work. Organizations in the U.S Europe and Japan are in the process of modifying the CNG tank bonfire test for compressed hydrogen storage. A bare tank with a single PRD is not a good simulation of a hydrogen fuel system installed in an actual vehicle. There will usually be multiple tanks plumbed together at either the tank pressure or at the intermediate pressure (after the pressure regulator). There may be more than one PRD. The tank may be shielded (from debris) or insulated to protect it from an underbody pool fire. Also the heat transfer from the simulated pool fire (propane flame) will be very different when mounted in a vehicle versus the bare tank test. A vehicle-level pool fire test will alleviate these problems. It is therefore recommended that the bare tank test be replaced by or augmented with a vehicle-level bonfire test similar to ECE R-34 Annex 5.

Because of their high surface areas crystallinity and tunable propertiesmetal−organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted intense interest as next-generationmaterials for gas capture and storage. While much effort has been devoted to thediscovery of new MOFs a vast catalog of existing MOFs resides within the CambridgeStructural Database (CSD) many of whose gas uptake properties have not beenassessed. Here we employ data mining and automated structure analysis to identify“cleanup” and rapidly predict the hydrogen storage properties of these compounds.Approximately 20 000 candidate compounds were generated from the CSD using analgorithm that removes solvent/guest molecules. These compounds were thencharacterized with respect to their surface area and porosity. Employing the empiricalrelationship between excess H2 uptake and surface area we predict the theoretical total hydrogen storage capacity for the subsetof ∼4000 compounds exhibiting nontrivial internal porosity. Our screening identifies several overlooked compounds having hightheoretical capacities; these compounds are suggested as targets of opportunity for additional experimental characterization.More importantly screening reveals that the relationship between gravimetric and volumetric H2 density is concave downwardwith maximal volumetric performance occurring for surface areas of 3100−4800 m2 /g. We conclude that H2 storage in MOFswill not benefit from further improvements in surface area alone. Rather discovery efforts should aim to achieve moderate massdensities and surface areas simultaneously while ensuring framework stability upon solvent removal.

Missions targeting the extreme and rugged environments on the moon and Mars have rich potential for a high science return although several risks exist in performing these exploration missions. The current generation of robots is unable to access these high-priority targets. We propose using teams of small hopping and rolling robots called SphereX that are several kilograms in mass and can be carried by a large rover or lander and tactically deployed for exploring these extreme environments. Considering that the importance of minimizing the mass and volume of these robot platforms translates into significant mission-cost savings we focus on the optimization of an integrated power and propulsion system for SphereX. Hydrogen is used as fuel for its high energy and it is stored in the form of lithium hydride and oxygen in the form of lithium perchlorate. The system design undergoes optimization using Genetic Algorithms integrated with gradient-based search techniques to find optimal solutions for a mission. Our power and propulsion system as we show in this paper is enabling because the robots can travel long distances to perform science exploration by accessing targets not possible with conventional systems. Our work includes finding the optimal mass and volume of SphereX such that it can meet end-to-end mission requirements.

A 10-minute tour of hydrogen industry technology and terminology for those who are new to the sector or who would simply like a quick review of the basics behind this burgeoning energy source.

Podcast can be found on their website

The year 2014 marked hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) first becoming commercially available in California where significant investments are being made to promote the adoption of alternative transportation fuels. A refueling infrastructure network that guarantees adequate coverage and expands in line with vehicle sales is required for FCEVs to be successfully adopted by private customers. In this paper we provide an overview of modelling methodologies used to project hydrogen refueling infrastructure requirements to support FCEV adoption and we describe in detail the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s scenario evaluation and regionalization analysis (SERA) model. As an example we use SERA to explore two alternative scenarios of FCEV adoption: one in which FCEV deployment is limited to California and several major cities in the United States; and one in which FCEVs reach widespread adoption becoming a major option as passenger vehicles across the entire country. Such scenarios can provide guidance and insights for efforts required to deploy the infrastructure supporting transition toward different levels of hydrogen use as a transportation fuel for passenger vehicles in the United States.

This paper investigates the optimal planning of microgrids including the hydrogen energy system through mixed-integer linear programming model. A real case study is analyzed by extending the only microgrid lab facility in Austria. The case study considers the hydrogen production via electrolysis seasonal storage and fuelling station for meeting the hydrogen fuel demand of fuel cell vehicles busses and trucks. The optimization is performed relative to two different reference cases which satisfy the mobility demand by diesel fuel and utility electricity based hydrogen fuel production respectively. The key results indicate that the low emission hydrogen mobility framework is achieved by high share of renewable energy sources and seasonal hydrogen storage in the microgrid. The investment optimization scenarios provide at least 66% and at most 99% carbon emission savings at increased costs of 30% and 100% respectively relative to the costs of the diesel reference case (current situation)

Two non-electrified railway lines one in Norway and the other in the USA are analysed for their potential to be electrified with overhead line equipment batteries hydrogen or hydrogen-battery hybrid powertrains. The energy requirements are established with single-train simulations including the altitude profiles of the lines air and rolling resistances and locomotive tractive-effort curves. The composition of the freight trains in terms of the number of locomotives battery wagons hydrogen wagons etc. is also calculated by the same model. The different technologies are compared by the criteria of equivalent annual costs benefit–cost ratio payback period and up-front investment based on the estimated techno-economic parameters for years 2020 2030 and 2050. The results indicate the potential of batteries and fuel cells to replace diesel on rail lines with low traffic volumes.

In this perspective on hydrogen carriers we focus on the needs for the development of robust active catalysts for the release of H₂ from aqueous formate solutions which are non-flammable non-toxic thermally stable and readily available at large scales at reasonable cost. Formate salts can be stockpiled in the solid state or dissolved in water for long term storage and transport using existing infrastructure. Furthermore formate salts are readily regenerated at moderate pressures using the same catalyst as for the H₂ release. There have been several studies focused on increasing the activity of catalysts to release H₂ at moderate temperatures i.e. < 80 °C below the operating temperature of a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. One significant challenge to enable the use of aqueous formate salts as hydrogen carriers is the deactivation of the catalyst under operating conditions. In this work we provide a review of the most efficient heterogeneous catalysts that have been described in the literature their proposed modes of deactivation and the strategies reported to reactivate them. We discuss potential pathways that may lead to deactivation and strategies to mitigate it in a variety of H₂ carrier applications. We also provide an example of a potential use case employing formate salts solutions using a fixed bed reactor for seasonal storage of energy for a microgrid application.

Green synthesis of crystalline porous materials for energy-related applications is of great significance but very challenging. Here we create a green strategy to fabricate a highly crystalline olefin-linked pyrazine-based covalent organic framework (COF) with high robustness and porosity under solvent-free conditions. The abundant nitrogen sites high hydrophilicity and well-defined one-dimensional nanochannels make the resulting COF an ideal platform to confine and stabilize the H₃PO₄ network in the pores through hydrogen-bonding interactions. The resulting material exhibits low activation energy (E_a) of 0.06 eV and ultrahigh proton conductivity across a wide relative humidity (10–90 %) and temperature range (25–80 °C). A realistic proton exchange membrane fuel cell using the olefin-linked COF as the solid electrolyte achieve a maximum power of 135 mW cm⁻² and a current density of 676 mA cm⁻² which exceeds all reported COF materials.