New and Renewable Solar Routes to Hydrogen Energy

Completed

Hydrogen and Fuel Cells(Fuel Cells)
Hydrogen and Fuel Cells(Hydrogen, Hydrogen storage)
Renewable Energy Sources(Solar Energy)

Basic and strategic applied research

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Chemistry)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Chemical Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor NP Brandon
Earth Science and Engineering
Imperial College London

Standard

EPSRC

01 October 2007

30 September 2012

60 months

£4,106,687

Energy

London

Energy : Energy

Professor NP Brandon, Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London

Professor J Barber, Biological Sciences, Imperial College London
Professor J Durrant, Chemistry, Imperial College London
Dr K Hellgardt, Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
Professor GH Kelsall, Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
Professor DR Klug, Chemistry, Imperial College London
Professor GC Maitland, Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
Professor PJ Nixon, Biological Sciences, Imperial College London

Project Contact, Hydrogen Solar Ltd
Project Contact, Shell International Ltd

The UK, together with the international community, is acutely aware of the problems arising from the unsustainable use of fossil fuels, and is increasingly focusing on the development of zero-carbon emission fuels, particularly hydrogen, using renewable energy sources. Of the renewable energy sources under consideration, solar energy is the most abundant and, if harvested efficiently, is capable of meeting global energy needs for the foreseeable future. It is estimated that solar power incidenton the earth is 178,000 TW, approximately 13,500 times greater than the total global power demand (or burn rate) in 2000 (13 TW) and 6400 times greater than recent forecasts of the power demand for 2020 (28 TW). Much solar energy research is focused on its direct conversion to electricity in photovoltaic devices, or on its direct conversion to heat in solar thermal devices. A major barrier to all these 'conventional' routes is their prohibitive cost. Here, we propose to exploitlow temperature natural biological and photocatalytic processes to develop alternative, and cost effective, methods for harvesting solar energy to produce renewable hydrogen fuels directly, and to explore how these could be embedded within novel, integrated energy production systems, incorporating fuel cell and hydrogen storage technology.The successful scale-up of these solar energy-driven renewable hydrogen generation processes would transform the supply of carbon-less fuel and make an enormous impact on the viability of hydrogen as an energy carrier. It will convert the potential to produce hydrogen in a carbon-free, renewable way into a process reality, and is an essential step on the route to fully exploiting fuel cell technology. It will position the UK as a world leader in one of the very few solutions to a truly sustainable energy future. As such, the impact is wide ranging, scientifically, technologically and commercially

01/06/07