Green Hydrogen: What it is, Its Uses and its Future

I was just reading some articles on cryogenic engines and their fuel when the question of using hydrogen as a fuel for transport on Earth came to my mind. It has a lot of benefits like leaving only water as a by-product after burning and having a specific impulse. As I poked my nose through some articles related to it, I found out that for electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen, most of the electricity comes from non-renewable sources and so it is not quite of a good fuel.

Then, I read about green Hydrogen somewhere and the gears in my brain clicked into space. Here is all I found out about it-

What is Green Hydrogen?

Green hydrogen is basically the hydrogen produced by using electricity from renewable sources for the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen.

File pic. Source: https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/644a839c8fcfe27f66bfa396/0x0.jpg?format=jpg&width=1200

To those readers who are not quite familiar with electrolysis, the electrolysis of water refers to passing electricity through water to split water molecules into H₂ and O₂. The balanced chemical equation is given below-

2H₂O->2H₂+O₂

A simple diagram showing the process of electrolysis.

Formalities aside, let's proceed with green hydrogen.

Advantages of Green Hydrogen

Their are countless number of advantages of green hydrogen.

The first advantage is that it is a renewable source of energy and the production of green hydrogen only produces oxygen as a by-product which is not at all polluting, but on the other hand is quite good for the environment.

The second advantage is that it can be used as a gas for industrial, commercial or domestic purposes or can be used to generate electricity.

The third advantage is that is is very lightweight when compressed and can be used to make lightweight and extremely efficient batteries, which can then be used to power EV's.

Hydrogen is also a high-density energy source which burns quite efficiently and produces a lot of energy. Hence, reletively smaller quantities of hydrogen can be used to power vehicles, as compared to other fuels.

Drawbacks of Green Hydrogen

Like with any other fuel, green hydrogen also has its fair share of drawbacks. The most prominent of these are-

The most important disadvantage is the high cost of renewable energy that is needed to produce green hydrogen. Compared to energy obtained from conventional sources, renewable energy is way more expensive, thus increasing the overall cost of the green hydrogen.

The production of hydrogen in general requires a higher energy consumption, which reduces the 'green' factor of this fuel.

Hydrogen is also a highly inflammable substance and requires specialised equipment to be handled safely. Ignoring safety precautions can lead to large disasters at hydrogen generation plants and storage structures.

Green Hydrogen in India

In India, the Adani group has planned to use about 3GW (GigaWatts) of solar energy to generate 400,000 tons of green hydrogen. The Adani Group has also planned to invest about 70 billion USD in green hydrogen and aims to provide the cheapest hydrogen around the world. 

The power ministry of India has also said that India intends to produce about 5 million tons of green hydrogen by 2030.

The Public Sector Unit(PSU) Oil India Ltd. (OIL), has established India's first 99.99% pure green hydrogen plant in April 2022.

That is all for this post on Green Hydrogen. Please consider following this blog to recieve more mind-blowing facts on technology!

Until next time,

Aarav Iyer

References:

(1) https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/advantages-green-hydrogen-fuel-clean-energy-transition/22153/

(2) https://cdn1.byjus.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/electrolysis-process.png

(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_hydrogen

(4) https://www.iberdrola.com/sustainability/green-hydrogen