Small Gains
Nanotech and solar power create hydrogen innovation.
As you see it, where are we with offshore hydrogen production at a commercial and industrial level?
Hydrogen production is still an emerging technology and, while it is one of the routes available for a clean, sustainable and financially viable energy future, hydrogen production is already at an industrial scale. What's not at an industrial scale is the production of hydrogen using renewable energy sources.
What’s the benefit of hydrogen?
Some renewable energy sources such as solar panels currently face challenges around energy storage for the energy it produces to be utilised in grid systems, with advancements in battery technology necessary to utilise these energy sources effectively. But hydrogen can be stored in a hydrogen tank with a compressor after it is produced with a power supply based on renewable energy, making it 'green' and possible to store with current technology.
What’s the best way to make green hydrogen?
Currently, there are many ways to produce hydrogen in an energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly way such as reformation of natural gas, biomass and water electrolysis, with some of these being carried out at scale. The industry is also exploring new, scaleable technologies to produce hydrogen using renewable energy. Powered by the rise in nanotechnology, industry and research groups are exploring how hydrogen can be produced photo-electrochemically from water using energy from renewable sources and nanomaterials consisting of semiconductors and/or metals. In this case, water molecules can be directly dissociated into hydrogen and oxygen using light energy. As a result, research efforts are focused on scaling up the fabrication techniques of such systems for commercial exploitation with high sustainable conversion efficiency.
Are there exciting opportunities for engineers when it comes to offshore hydrogen in the future?
One of the main challenges for offshore hydrogen is still the cost, upfront and operational. For this reason, a technology based on the photo-electrochemical water-splitting process is quite attractive because of the use of low-cost materials and renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
Another challenge is for the production of hydrogen to be clean, renewable and to have net-zero environmental impact in a time where emissions commitments are front of mind for industry, researchers and policy makers. Hydrogen production is already at the industrial scale, but it is still responsible for annual CO2 emissions equivalent to those of Indonesia and the UK combined (according to the International Energy Agency). This is because fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal are being used to produce so-called 'blue hydrogen'. To tackle this, carbon-capture technology needs to be utilised to reduce the carbon footprint of this process, alongside pursuing more renewable methods of hydrogen generation.
What’s your research focusing on?
My research is looking at reducing carbon dioxide emission levels using earth-abundant materials. The idea is to create an artificial carbon cycle, using electricity from a renewable energy source and then electrochemically or photo-electrochemically reducing carbon dioxide to useful hydrocarbons that can be used as valuable chemicals and fuels through the use of small catalysts at the nanoscale. This happens in an aqueous solution (water) where as a by-product, water, is split into hydrogen and oxygen – to later be used.
During the conversion of CO2 in an aqueous solution, the hydrogen evolution reaction can also occur due to the water electrolysis where water is split into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Our ultimate goal is to design and develop efficient, selective and low-cost nanocatalysts with a high surface area and light absorption that drives these types of chemical reactions using sunlight. Such inexpensive and recyclable systems can be constructed on-site at the point of end-use to overcome the barriers to efficient hydrogen and chemical distribution.
What's the most important thing people should know about this topic?
One of the most important things people should know is the scale of current projects hoping to tackle renewable hydrogen production, despite the costs associated with operation and maintenance of such large-scale projects. There is already a very exciting project 20km off the French coast named Sealhyfe. It is the offshore hydrogen production platform that is tested by Lhyfe, a European group dedicated to the energy transition, and is a producer and supplier of green and renewable hydrogen. By connecting to the floating wind turbine Floatgen and the site’s subsea hub via an umbilical cable, it produced its first kilograms of green hydrogen on 20 June 2023 after it was towed to the offshore test site.
There is also something happening in the UK, despite Brexit. The government awarded £9.3m in innovation funding to Vattenfall to build an 8MW offshore hydrogen electrolyser at its test and demonstration windfarm in Aberdeen Bay. This is not insignificant given that less than a decade ago “big” was measured in kilowatts. The work on the project has commenced, with the goal of first production as early as 2025.
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