Introduction
Conclusions
Hydrogen Production
For hydrogen to become a viable energy carrier, modes of hydrogen production must be developed to a sustainable and cost-effective level. Hydrogen can be produced from primary or secondary sources. Primary sources extract hydrogen from a naturally occurring substances. Secondary sources use energy, usually in the form of electricity, to split water into oxygen and hydrogen.
Source: http://www.ch2bc.org/index2.htmHydrogen from Primary Sources
The production of hydrogen from primary sources can be simplified as follows:
primary source + energy = hydrogen + carbon dioxide
The non-renewable sources involve the use of fossil fuels to derive hydrogen gas.
The renewable source that can be used for hydrogen fuel is biomass. Recent studies have shown that hydrogen fuel can be produced from carbohydrates.
Hydrogen could be produced from all these forms of biomass.
Source: http://www.ch2bc.org
Scientists are working on finding the best catalysts for this process, and are trying to increase the specificity of the reactions in order to maximize the hydrogen yield. Some scientists are approaching the problem from a different angle, and trying to use bacterial fermentation to produce hydrogen from carbohydrates.
Hydrogen from Secondary Sources
energy from secondary source + water = hydrogen + oxygen
There are two ways that renewable sources can be used for hydrogen production: as the hydrogen source itself, and as the energy source for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. One of the main sources of hydrogen in the future will most likely be from the electrolysis of water, which is a renewable source. Part of this section will be devoted to this fundamental topic. An additional option uses the photon energy of the sun to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. These studies, and the chemistry behind the different methods of hydrogen production from biomass, will be developed further in this section.
The second main topic in this section is how renewable energy can be used to break water apart to produce hydrogen. Two of the main renewable energy sources that could be used for this are wind energy and solar energy, harnessed in photovoltaic cells. There are a few ways to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, including thermolysis and photolysis, but it is likely that the most useful method in the future will be electrolysis. Since wind energy and solar energy can produce electricity, it is feasible that these electricity sources could be used directly for water electrolysis. These processes will be explored in further detail, including the efficiency of hydrogen production from renewable energy sources.