UNWIR examines water’s critical role in hydrogen fuel’s future
January 16, 2023The research is looking into the relationship between water availability and H2 production.
UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) has launched a new project working group to examine the connection between the production of hydrogen fuel and emerging technologies, water availability, and the role water utilities will play in the UK and Irish H2 value chain.
The project has selected Stantec as its research contractor to help determine these core relationships.
Stantec is a global sustainable design and engineering firm. It has been chosen as the UKWIR collaborative project’s research contract with support from Ikigai and Heriot-Watt University experts.
The UK Hydrogen Strategy has established a goal of 10GW of low-carbon hydrogen fuel production by the end of the decade. This is meant to be a foundation step along the way to achieving a 2050 goal of net zero carbon emissions. Water is expected to play a critical role in determining whether the strategy will be focusing on blue or green H2 to achieve the government’s targets.
As such, this project will place its focus on understanding the feasibility of producing H2 at scale with respect to that effort’s water consumption, while also examining the impact when it comes to resources. The project intends to work within a high-level program to review the latest tech – such as using electricity and/or bioenergy as feedstocks – in order to provide optimal business model guidance for water utility engagement.
The project is meant to provide timely, usable support in water and energy for hydrogen fuel production.
Through the hydrogen fuel study project, the goal is to offer water companies and other water and energy stakeholders quality support to achieve their carbon reduction targets.
The project’s final report will bring together the work program’s results and is expected to be completed this spring. At that time, stakeholders will be invited to a tech transfer workshop where they will be able to discuss the project’s research findings.
“Hydrogen presents some exciting opportunities for the market and will likely be a critical element of Britain’s low-carbon future,” said Stantec Project Manager Drew Brown. “However, we need the integration of this resource to be commercially feasible and we must also better understand the available technology options and their impacts.”
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Hydrogen production and Sodium Sulfur batteries will have to be produced using seawater worldwide. Simply not enough freshwater to power our world using freshwater alone. Very soon oil and natural gas reserves will be depleted. Renewable solar, wind, hydrogen, and sodium-sulfur batteries will provide the replacement for depleting oil and natural gas reserves world-wide in the future. Seawater minerals are the only energy solution able to replace oil and natural gas reserves. Coastlines are a great place to build hydrogen and sodium-sulfur plants to gather these minerals. The Black Sea and the coastline of the UK, USA and other countries will be used to accomplish a needed energy transformation. In the future seawater will be moved inland much like oil and natural gas in moved to the coastline for energy purposes.
Please read comments in past articles and quickly make this energy transformation.
You sound like you have some engineering backround, so I have a question you might be able to answer. What is the result of the hydrogen being extracted from the water. Is the water still useful and safe to return to the source ? I truly have no clue if there is another problem created from this.
Im very excited about the hydrogen furure, but Im not an engineer or scientist, so knowing that there is a reaction to every action……what happens to the water thats had the hydrogen extracted from it ? Is it harmed or useless for consumption or other water life ? I read this news letter always, and have not seen a discussion on that topic.
Electrolysis is used to split purified water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is captured and hopefully the oxygen in the future will be released back into the atmosphere. Hydrogen fuel cells produce an electric current when hydrogen reunites with oxygen found in the atmosphere. Water is created along with the electrical current. The process creates purified water and prevents the hydrogen from leaving our atmosphere, an environmentally friendly way to produce energy. The electrolysis process to produce hydrogen on a very large scale worldwide could also provide a needed source of oxygen that is released into the atmosphere.
The problems with direct seawater electrolysis is caused by minerals found in seawater; For example, sodium and chorine and how they combine with oxygen, to form chlorine gas and create oxidation problems with carbon (medal) electrodes, basically shorting there useful life. Recent research advances using a membrane filter to block seawater minerals and allow water vapor to pass through has been successfully tested in China. The purified water vapor is then electrolyzed to produce hydrogen.
Sodium-sulfur found in seawater could be used to produce sodium-sulfur batteries. A sodium-sulfur battery four times more powerful than a similar lithium battery has recently been produced in a research lab.
Both research advances have a appeared in Hydrogen Fuel News.
As to carbon (metal) electrodes, see comments in previous articles that identified the carbon electrodes that will likely work best to split seawater vapor using electrolysis on a worldwide scale. Also, please note the electrolysis of water vapor from seawater should be performed in an electromagnetic field to improve hydrogen reduction and fight the oxidation of carbon electrodes made from iron, nickel and graphene more abundant than platinum.
merita un estudio la disponibilidad de agua en el mundo para producir hidrogeno verde, ya que La contaminación y el agua salada suponen pre tratamientos que harán cara su producción, el uso de agua de rios y mares contaminados abriría la puerta a la limpieza de ríos, el dragado y canalización cuidando fuentes de agua naturales como los paramos e incrementando el uso de agua grises en las casa y el agua lluvia donde se pueda colectar. Pero tanto los ríos como los mares contienen una inmensa cantidad de animales e la cadena alimenticia humana que se verían en competencia directa por el agua y plantearían esta incógnita sobre que seria mas importante, el agua o los alimentos.
Debe pensarse entonses en que la bio energia humana es una solucion viable, caminar, patinar, hacr bibicleta y que a su vez estos mivimiento generen parte de la energia que se gasta