The photo is sourced from scientificrussia.ru
The most popular method of clean hydrogen production is water electrolysis with the use of renewable energy sources. The drawback of this method is its high energy and capital intensity. The specific energy costs of green hydrogen production can reach up to 40 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per 1 kg, with a unit cost of up to $9 per 1 kg. As a result, the share of green hydrogen in the global H2 supply structure remains low. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that its share was less than 1% in 2021, whereas the remaining 99% was represented almost entirely by gray hydrogen (steam reforming of methane without the use of CO2 capture technologies), brown hydrogen (coal gasification), as well as H2 production as a by-product of oil refining.
As an alternative, scientists from the FRC of Coal and Coal Chemistry of the SB RAS have proposed to produce hydrogen via laser irradiation of a suspension of water and aluminum nanopowder. “The advantage of this technology is that laser radiation is only absorbed by aluminum particles, whereas water is optically transparent. Aluminum particles are covered with an oxide shell, which gets destroyed by irradiation, water gets exposed to the metal core, and a chemical reaction occurs with the release of hydrogen. Thanks to the simplicity of this process, as well as the chosen components and tools, we can reduce the energy costs to 15–17 kWh per 1 kg of hydrogen,” Yaroslav Kraft, researcher at the FRC of Coal and Coal Chemistry of the SB RAS, is quoted as saying by the Scientific Russia portal.
This technology has the asset of simplicity: the process takes place at room temperature and atmospheric pressure with no need for additional chemical compounds, and the laser device used to produce hydrogen is more compact than an electrolyser. In the future, the authors of the study plan to replace nanoparticles with industrial scrap (aluminum sawdust and shavings), which will not only accelerate the industrial implementation of the technology, but will also make it possible to obtain aluminum oxide as a by-product raw material that can be used for the production of adsorbents and ceramic materials.
