Michael Kanellos

Another cheap and easy way to make hydrogen? May 12, 2008 at 10:35 AM

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Too bad it’s so tough to produce.

Producing hydrogen in an industrial setting typically requires large amounts of power. Currently, most companies make it by combining methane with water and heating up the mix to 815 degrees Celsius. Besides that, the reaction produces 9.3 kilograms of carbon dioxide for every kilogram of hydrogen. Whoops. As a result, some, such as respected researcher Joseph Romm, have even postulated that hydrogen cars could be dirtier than regular cars. You can get hydrogen from water too, but again the energy/cost balance on electrolysis isn’t great.  Even proponents admit that the most economical, large-scale way to make hydrogen might revolve around harnessing the waste heat from nuclear power plants.

Several researchers, however, are working on chemical processes that will allow engineers to extract hydrogen from various compounds at relatively low temperatures. And here’s the latest.

Researchers at Germany’s Leibniz Institute of Catalysis (college mascot: unknown) have come up with a way to get hydrogen out of formic acid–which consists of two oxygens, two hydrogens and a carbon–at room temperatures.  No superheating. No pumping electric current into water.

The formic acid is effectively broken into carbon dioxide and hydrogen in the presence of a catalyst like ruthenium phosphine and an amine. (More here on Green Car Congress, which found the report.)  But, wait. The process releases carbon dioxide. Doesn’t that make it environmentally hazardous, even worse than heating up methane?  

Yes and no. While the formic acid reaction produces a lot of carbon dioxide, you don’t have to heat the mixture, an improvement over methane reforming. The researchers claim that the formic acid can be produced from combining carbon dioxide and biomass-derived hydrogen. Thus, in theory it can be carbon-neutral.  How successful that will be remains to be seen. (In fairness to methane cracking, manufacturers could also conceivably get methane from digesters decomposing cow manure, thereby reducing the net carbon output.)

Others working on chemical ways to generate hydrogen include Jerry Woodall at Purdue University (active ingredient: an aluminum alloy); Ecotality (magnesium oxide); Pacific Northwest National Labs; NanoOptek (titania electrode for water electrolysis); and Mike Lefenfeld at Signa Chemistry (sodium). Side note: Mike used to be on the boxing team at Columbia: a sports team you probably didn’t know existed.

And keep your eye on Synthetic Genomics and research from Stanford on exploiting microbes to split water. Then there is NanoLogix, which makes hydrogen with microbes from waste streams coming from a jelly manufacturer. Snack foods: the key to energy independence. 

Hydrogen is a long shot, but it’s not dead yet. 

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