Farm waste can turn into hydrogen fuel
Imagerybt/SHUTTERSTOCK
Hydrogen can be made by using agricultural waste in a new production process that uses less energy than conventional methods and releases greenhouse gases.
The new process turns bioethanol into clean hydrogen and acetic acid. It is also found in vinegar in chemicals, food and pharmaceuticals.
Most hydrogen is produced in natural gas. This process is energy -intensive and expensive. Hydrogen can be produced in water using renewable electricity, but this approach is much more expensive than using natural gas.
Graham Huts At Cardiff University in the UK, his colleagues developed an alternative method that depended on catalysts made of platinum and Iidium to extract hydrogen from biophanol and water without releasing carbon dioxide. Hutchings says that bioethanol used in this process can be made of waste plant materials.
Hutchings said, “We do not make an environmental burden because we do not make carbon dioxide. “We are taking biologically sustainable carbon and hydrogen sources, and we are changing it to recyclable hydrogen and reproducible acetic acid. It’s pretty neat. ”
The team says the process is more likely to be extended and commercially executed, and it requires much less energy than making hydrogen with natural gas. The next step is to establish a demonstration plant by attracting commercial investment.
Clean hydrogen production should be rapidly expanded to enable global bulletification, which is expected to require hydrogen fuel, along with industries such as steel, chemicals and long -range transportation.
However, the world uses about 15 million tons of acetic acid a year to limit the potential role that can meet the demand for zero carbon hydrogen.
Hutchings said, “We make twice as much hydrogen than acetic acid. “But acetic acid is much heavier than hydrogen.” This means producing 15 million tons of acetic acid, the world’s annual demand. “There are some inconsistencies in terms of scale.” Klaus Hellgardt In Imperial College London.
Rather, the new process can provide a potential path to decorate a part of the chemical industry, and clean hydrogen production can provide attractive by -products as attractive by -products, Hutchings says. “At present, acetic acid is effective with fossil carbon. And here we can make it in a sustainable carbon source. ”
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