Review Paper in Angewandte Chemie International Edition in frame of the BMBF/HGF Innovation Pool Project “Solar Hydrogen: pure and compressed”

Review paper “Technological Pathways to Produce Compressed and Highly Pure Hydrogen from Solar Power” by scientists from IEK-1 (Mariya E. Ivanova, Laura-Alena Schäfer, Norbert H. Menzler and Olivier Guillon), several other FZJ GmbH-IEK institutes and HGF centers has been published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition (2023).

The Innovation Pool project "Solar Hydrogen: pure and compressed" aims to advance both the levels of scientific knowledge and technology readiness of several viable technologies for the conversion of solar energy into hydrogen (H₂). By the project's midterm period, a review paper was published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition focusing on the technological pathways to produce compressed and highly pure H₂ from solar power. The goal of this extensive effort, which involved several HGF centers, was to make a clear statement about the status quo of technologically achievable H₂ purity and pressure levels. In this way, future development opportunities can be identified and potentially pursued.

The review considers five major technological pathways to produce green hydrogen: low- and high-temperature water electrolysis, photoelectrochemical and thermochemical water splitting, as well as hydrocarbon (e.g. bio-methane) conversion in liquid metal and plasma reactors. They are all driven with solar power in the form either of photons, electricity or heat and are reviewed from the prospective of their current development level, technical limitations and future potential regarding to the quality of produced hydrogen. These technologies differ in their degree of maturity (Technology Readiness Level, TRL of 2 to 9) and can deliver Hydrogen with ≥99.97 purity and pressure >500 bar. Coupling to electrochemical compressors can be furthermore a necessary downstream element for achieving even larger increase of the hydrogen output pressure, currently to about 1300 bar. In addition to the technological perspective, numerical simulations on various scales are also considered as an overarching approach and provide insights for the development and optimization of materials, components, reactors and systems.

Original publication:

M. E. Ivanova, R. Peters, M. Müller, S. Haas, M. F. Seidler, G. Mutschke, K. Eckert, P. Röse, S. Calnan, R. Bagacki, R. Schlatmann, C. Grosselindemann, L.-A. Schäfer, N. H. Menzler, A. Weber, R. van de Krol, F. Liang, F. F. Abdi, S. Brendelberger, N. Neumann, J. Grobbel, M. Roeb, C. Sattler, I. Duran, B. Dietrich, C. Hofberger, L. Stoppel, N. Uhlenbruck, T. Wetzel, D. Rauner, A. Hecimovic, U. Fantz, N. Kulyk, J. Harting, O. Guillon

Technological Pathways to Produce Compressed and Highly Pure Hydrogen from Solar Power

Angewandte Chemie International Edition published by Wiley-VCH GmbH (2023), https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202218850

Link to the Helmholtz Energy webpage under the headings “Scientific Highlights”: https://energy.helmholtz.de/forschungshighlights/solarer-wasserstoff-hochrein-und-komprimiert/