Publications

Taiwan stands out globally in the manufacture of scooters. If fuel cell technology could be applied to the scooter Taiwan could gain an advantage in the trend for commercial applications for fct. In 2011 The Bureau of Standards Metrology and Inspection proposed this project “the Demonstration of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Scooters.” Thirty rental fuel cell scooters are to run a long distance. Evaluation during everyday use of the cells performance will be made and reported by the riders. All the evaluations will be put into consideration of future adjustments. The project is to map out a practice route in Taipei and set up a control center to follow progress. The data gathered from the practice project will help examine the performance of fuel cell scooters contributing to the creation of legal drafts and future standards. The Taiwan fuel cell industry chain is complete and the industry possesses the ability to produce key components. Thus it is a potential market in Taiwan. A review of fuel cell development conditions in Taiwan shows that the fuel cell scooters is a niche industry owing to the strength of this technology.

As the world strives to cut carbon emissions electric power from renewables has emerged as a vital energy source. Yet transport and industry will still require combustible fuels for many purposes. Such needs could be met with hydrogen which itself can be produced using renewable power.



Hydrogen provides high-grade heat helping to meet a range of energy needs that would be difficult to address through direct electrification. This could make hydrogen the missing link in the transformation of the global energy system.  



Key sectors for renewable-based hydrogen uptake include:  

• Industry where it could replace fossil-based feedstocks including natural gas in high-emission applications.
• Buildings and power where it could be mixed with natural gas or combined with industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to produce syngas.
• Transport where it can provide low-carbon mobility through fuel-cell electric vehicles.  

Electrolysers – which split hydrogen and oxygen – can make power systems more flexible helping to integrate high shares of variable renewables. Power consumption for electrolysis can be adjusted to follow actual solar and wind output while producing the hydrogen needed for transport industry or injection into the gas grid.  



In the long run hydrogen could become a key element in 100% renewable energy systems. With technologies maturing actual scale-up should yield major cost reductions. The right policy and regulatory framework however remains crucial to stimulate private investment in in hydrogen production in the first place.

Protonic ceramic fuel cells (PCFCs) are promising electrochemical devices for the efficient and clean conversion of hydrogen and low hydrocarbons into electrical energy. Their intermediate operation temperature (500–800 °C) proffers advantages in terms of greater component compatibility unnecessity of expensive noble metals for the electrocatalyst and no dilution of the fuel electrode due to water formation. Nevertheless the lower operating temperature in comparison to classic solid oxide fuel cells places significant demands on the cathode as the reaction kinetics are slower than those related to fuel oxidation in the anode or ion migration in the electrolyte. Cathode design and composition are therefore of crucial importance for the cell performance at low temperature. The different approaches that have been adopted for cathode materials research can be broadly classified into the categories of protonic–electronic conductors oxide-ionic–electronic conductors triple-conducting oxides and composite electrodes composed of oxides from two of the other categories. Here we review the relatively short history of PCFC cathode research discussing trends highlights and recent progress. Current understanding of reaction mechanisms is also discussed.

As one of the most promising alternative fuels hydrogen is expected with high hopes. The electrolysis of water is regarded as the cleanest and most efficient method of hydrogen production. Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) is deemed as one of the most promising alternatives HER catalysts owing to its high catalytic activity and low cost. Its continuous production and efficient preparation become the key problems in future industrial production. In this work we first developed a continuous micro-reaction approach with high heat and mass transfer rates to synthesize few-layer MoS2 nanoplates with abundant active sites. The defective MoS2 ultrathin nanoplates exhibit excellent HER performance with an overpotential of 260 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm-2 small Tafel slope (53.6 mV dec-1) and prominent durability which are comparable to most reported MoS2 based catalysts. Considering the existence of continuous devices it’s suitable for the synthesis of MoS2 as high-performance electrocatalysts for the industrial water electrolysis. The novel preparation method may open up a new way to synthesize all two-dimension materials toward HER.

Although hydrogen is considered to be one of the most promising green fuels its efficient and safe storage and use still raise several technological challenges. Physisorption in porous materials may offer an attractive means of  storage but the state-of-the-art capacity of these kinds of systems is still limited. To overcome the present drawbacks a deeper understanding of the adsorption and surface diffusion mechanism is required along with new types of adsorbents developed and/or optimised for this purpose. In the present study we compare the hydrogen adsorption behaviour of three carbon gels exhibiting different porosity and/or surface chemistry. In addition to standard adsorption characterisation techniques neutron spin-echo spectroscopy (NSE) has been also applied to explore the surface mobility of the adsorbed hydrogen. Our results reveal that both the porosity and surface chemistry of the adsorbent play a significant role in the adsorption of  in these systems.

Emissions from natural gas combustion and use are the largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the UK. The use of hydrogen in place of natural gas in principle offers a potential route to long term widespread decarbonisation of gas distribution networks as shown by the Leeds City Gate (‘H21’) study.1 The purpose of considering conversion to hydrogen is to deliver widespread carbon abatement across the UK at lower cost than alternative decarbonisation strategies.<br/>The Government is to finalise and publish the long-awaited ‘Clean Growth Plan’ along with an Industrial Strategy White Paper in Autumn 2017. Conversion from natural gas to hydrogen potentially on an incremental basis would likely represent a major opportunity for new industrial growth. This might be through the longer term stability or potential expansion of existing (newly decarbonised) energy intensive industry or through business opportunities and growth created from new technologies developed to facilitate the transition to hydrogen as the UK becomes a global leader and major exporter of equipment and skills. Job creation and the resulting gross value added (GVA) to the economy could therefore be significant in delivery of the goals of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF).<br/>The core requirement is to supply low carbon hydrogen in bulk matching production to distribution network demand at an affordable cost. The H21 study concluded that to do so reliably hydrogen is best produced by reducing natural gas in steam methane reformers (SMRs) fitted with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). The study proposed that the considerable inter-seasonal and daily fluctuations in network demand can be managed by storing hydrogen in underground salt formations. It concluded that the SMRs with associated carbon dioxide (CO2) capture should be located near to where CO2 transport and storage infrastructure was likely to be created and noted that candidate locations for this are Teesside Humberside Grangemouth and the Liverpool-Manchester (L-M) area. Two of these Humberside and the L-M area are within the Cadent Gas Ltd (‘Cadent’) network and are also industrial ‘clusters’ with significant populations.<br/>The work reported here builds upon the approach proposed in the H21 project by focussing on defining ‘low carbon’ hydrogen supply and distribution systems in Humberside and the L-M area at a system scale sufficient to supply a large city.2 Both the Humber and L-M clusters are close to salt deposits which are suitable for both daily and inter-seasonal storage of hydrogen (for initial or expanded projects). Furthermore new large-scale gas Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) plants widely assumed as likely anchor projects for CCS infrastructure have been consented in both cluster areas confirming that they are both strong candidates as locations for the first CCS clusters and hence as locations for a hydrogen supply system.

Biomass gasification is a promising technology to produce secondary fuels or heat and power offering considerable advantages over fossil fuels. An important aspect in the usage of producer gas is the removal of harmful contaminants from the raw syngas. Thus the object of this study is the development of a simulation model for a gasifier including gas clean-up for which a fluidized-bed gasifier for biomass-derived syngas production was considered based on a quasi-equilibrium approach through Gibbs free energy minimisation and including an innovative hot gas cleaning constituted by a combination of catalyst sorbents inside the gasification reactor catalysts in the freeboard and subsequent sorbent reactors by using Aspen Plus software. The gas cleaning chain simulates the raw syngas clean-up for several organic and inorganic contaminants i.e. toluene benzene naphthalene hydrogen sulphide hydrogen chloride and ammonia. The tar and inorganic contaminants final values achieved are under 1 g/Nm3 and 1 ppm respectively.

Energy Technology Perspectives 2020 is a major new IEA publication focused on the technology needs and opportunities for reaching international climate and sustainable energy goals. This flagship report offers vital analysis and advice on the clean energy technologies the world needs to meet net-zero emissions objectives.

The report’s comprehensive analysis maps out the technologies needed to tackle emissions in all parts of the energy sector including areas where technology progress is still lacking such as long-distance transport and heavy industries. It shows the amount of emissions reductions that are required from electrification hydrogen bioenergy and carbon capture utilisation and storage. It also provides an assessment of emissions from existing infrastructure and what can be done to address them.

Link to Document on IEA website

China has promised to reach the peak carbon dioxide emission (ca. 10 billion tons) by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. To realize these goals it is necessary to develop hydrogen energy and fuel cell techniques. However the high cost and low intrinsic safety of high-pressure hydrogen storage limit their commercialization. NH3 is high in hydrogen content easily liquefied at low pressure and free of carbon and the technology of NH3 synthesis has been commercialized nationwide. It is worth noting that the production of NH3 in China is about 56 million tons per year accounting for 35% of worldwide production. Hence with the well established infrastructure for NH3 synthesis and transportation and the demand for clean energy in China it is feasible to develop a green and economical energy roadmap viz. “Clean low-pressure NH3 synthesis → Safe and economical NH3 storage and transportation → Carbon-free efficient NH3-H2 utilization” for low-carbon or even carbon-free energy production.<br/>Currently the academic and industrial communities in China are striving to make technological breakthroughs in areas such as photocatalytic water splitting electrocatalytic water splitting mild-condition NH3 synthesis low-temperature NH3 catalytic decomposition and indirect or direct NH3 fuel cells with significant progress.<br/>Taking full advantage of the NH3 synthesis industry and readjusting the industrial structure it is viable to achieve energy saving and emission reduction in NH3 synthesis industry (440 million tons CO2 per year) as well as promote a new energy industry and ensure national energy security. Therefore relevant academic and industrial communities should put effort on mastering the key technologies of “Ammonia-Hydrogen” energy conversion and utilization with complete self-dependent intellectual property. It is envisioned that through the establishment of “Renewable Energy-Ammonia-Hydrogen” circular economy a green technology chain for hydrogen energy industry would pose as a promising pathway to achieve the 2030 and 2060 goals.

<br/>The decarbonisation of heating represents a transformative challenge for many countries. The UK’s net-zero greenhouse gas emissions target requires the removal of fossil fuel combustion from heating in just three decades. A greater understanding of policy processes linked to system transformations is expected to be of value for understanding systemic change; how policy makers perceive policy issues can impact on policy change with knock-on effects for energy system change. This article builds on the literature considering policy maker perceptions and focuses on the issue of UK heat policy. Using qualitative analysis we show that policy makers perceive heat decarbonisation as disruptive technological pathways are seen as deeply uncertain and heat decarbonisation appears to offer policy makers little ‘up-side’. Perceptions are bounded by uncertainty affected by concerns over negative impacts influenced by external influences and relate to ideas of continuity. Further research and evidence on optimal heat decarbonisation and an adaptive approach to governance could support policy makers to deliver policy commensurate with heat decarbonisation. However even with reduced uncertainty and more flexible governance the perceptions of disruption to consumers mean that transformative heat policy may remain unpopular for policy makers potentially putting greenhouse mitigation targets at risk of being missed.