New tech aims to reduce hydrogen fuel costs

According to the team, their new method is faster, less expensive and more energy efficient than previous approaches. 

Milad Abolhasani, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State and a corresponding author of a paper on the technique, said that there are technical obstacles that need to be overcome before hydrogen can be viewed as a practical sustainable energy alternative.

Hydrogen refuelling stations could be located at existing petrol stations, taking advantage of existing infrastructure, but transporting hydrogen is dangerous, so it needs to be transported by a liquid carrier. A key obstacle for this strategy is that extracting hydrogen from the liquid carrier at destination sites, such as fuelling stations, is energy intensive and costly.

“One of the big obstacles to the adoption of a hydrogen economy is the cost of storage and transportation,” Abolhasani said. “Previous research has shown that it is possible to use photocatalysts to release hydrogen gas from a liquid carrier using only sunlight.