Renewables have postulated as the Future of Energyboth particular and in entire countries. They are also the present, with examples such as Sorpasso in countries like Spain and others like Uruguay pulling practically only renewables for months. Within those renewables, the development of methods to produce green hydrogen more efficiently is key.
And a team of South Korean researchers They believe Having found the key to approaching that new era of green hydrogen: a new material that promises to revolutionize energy production.
Colors. Hydrogen is extremely abundant in the universe, but it has a problem: finding it without being combined with other elements is very difficult. It is an element that has a great ease to combine and, to use it as a source of energy, it is necessary to separate it from those other elements. There are several ways to do itbut if we use renewables as an energy source, we can achieve what is known as ‘green hydrogen’.
Catalysts. By means of the electrolysis technique, water hydrogen is separated. For hydrogen to be “green” it is necessary that, in that process, we use solar, wind or hydroelectric energy as a source of energy. Also an element that works as a catalyst, elements that accelerate the necessary chemical reactions to separate the hydrogen from the element to which it is linked.
The better the catalyst, the faster the reaction occurs, making the process more efficient in time and resources. The problem is that they are usually expensive due to the presence of precious metals, which makes them little accessible and also have a high environmental impact because these metals are extracted from mining, some as part of Rare earth.
No precious metals. That is why there are researchers experiencing with catalysts based on transition metals, non -metallic materials (such as graphene) and others that combine elements such as ruthenium, silicon and tungsten. Precisely, Ruthenium is the main ingredient of the new catalyst they are developing in the Group of Metrology of Emerging Materials of the Institute for Research and Science Science of Korea (or Kriss).
The team had a catalyst with a molybdenum dioxide structure with nickel-molybdenum . They were clear that they had to investigate the Moo₂-Ni₄mo route as a catalyst, but not in their current state.
Example of the electrolysis process to separate oxygen hydrogen
Ruthenium shield. That’s when they decided to take the eye on Ruthenium. They introduced a small amount of this element into the structure of Moo₂-Ni₄mo and realized that, with river nanpoarticles of a size below the three nanometers, a thin layer was formed on the surface of the catalysts.
Impact. This works as a shield that prevents degradation, improving durability. How much? According to its evaluations, the new catalyst presents a durability four times greater and is capable of lasting six times more in activity if compared to other existing commercial materials. All this without using rare or precious metals in the process.
In addition, they combined the new catalyst with a photovoltaic system that uses Sovskita-Silicio solar cellsachieving conversion efficiency of 22.8% of solar to hydrogen. It is a promising result because it shows that this new catalyst is not only resistant and accessible, but efficient.
Pocket. The problem of green hydrogen is that, although it is a fundamental element in our Way to Discarbonizationhis first appraisal has not been too encouraging. In December last year the first Iberian index of the price of renewable hydrogen was launched. Baptized as mibgas, The starting price was € 148.36/MWh. To compare, that of natural gas was about € 45.83/MWh.
It was not something encouraging, but something completely normal due to the current production cost of hydrogen. Not only to talk about the infrastructure (with the entire system not only of electrolysis, but also of solar panels to feed the process), as well as the cost of the catalysts. That is why, cheaper catalysts that maintain high efficiency pave the way to the extraction of green hydrogen at a more restrained price.
Looking at the sea. From the KRISS they are confident with their achievements because that new catalyst has not only marked with a green point the sections of price, efficiency and durability, but is exceeding expectations. Sun Hwa Park is the team’s principal researcher and has commented that these catalysts are also demonstrating high stability in saline water.
“Currently, green hydrogen production requires purified water, but the use of real seawater could substantially reduce the costs associated with desalination. We plan to continue our research in this area. ” It will be the next challenge of a team that is not alone in this, since there are other teams and universities that have been proposed Exactly the same: use new transition compounds and metals to reduce precious metal dependence on catalysts.
Now, everything indicates that it is something that will take time to establish and, without going any further, there we have the price of solar energy and how much it has dropped When technology has been popular.
Images | Kriss, IberdrolaDepartment of Energy and Wood Mackenzie
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