Electrosynthetic approaches to hydrogen production for a net zero future encompassing new materials paradigms

由于国际社会的重点是发展低碳（或净零碳）技术，因此必须开发生产替代燃料的高效和有效途径。世界主要国家的政府已经对氢作为未来燃料的使用做出了重大承诺，并提出了几种可再生路线，以生产大量用于运输、家庭和工业环境的氢。然而，在设想氢的广泛采用之前，氢的运输和储存是需要解决的问题。作为一种能量载体，氨的氢含量很高，被认为是有吸引力的，因为这种氢载体在工业上是大批量生产的，并且具有国际运输基础设施。目前合成氨的缺点是它的合成有很大的碳足迹，依赖于蒸汽甲烷重整来产生合成氨所需的氢。假设可以生产绿色氨，剩下的问题是是否有有效的富土材料用于氨的催化分解，以及所产生的气流的分离。在这个项目中，我们将开发新的氨分解催化剂，并将其与直接电解和渗透膜分离技术相结合。这两种解决方案将提供可扩展的互补设备，并且可以轻松部署在需要氢气的地方。

As the international community is focused on the development of low (or net zero) carbon technologies it is imperative that efficient and effective routes to produce alternative fuels are developed. Leading governments worldwide have made significant commitments to the use of hydrogen as a future fuel, and proposed several renewable routes to produce significant volumes of hydrogen for use in transport and in both domestic and industrial settings. However transport and storage of hydrogen are issues that need to be addressed before widespread adoption of hydrogen can be envisaged. As an energy carrier ammonia, with significant hydrogen content, has been considered attractive as this hydrogen carrier is produced industrially at volume and has an international transport infrastructure. The current disadvantage with ammonia is that the synthesis of this has a large carbon footprint, relying on steam methane reforming to produce the hydrogen required to synthesis ammonia. Assuming that green ammonia can be produced, the remaining issue is the availability of effective earth abundant materials for the catalytic decomposition of ammonia, and the separation of the resultant gas streams. In this project we will develop new catalysts for ammonia decomposition and couple these with separation technologies: direct electrolysis and permeation membranes. These two solutions will offer complementary devices that are scalable and that can be deployed easily at locations where hydrogen is required.