Scientists at the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology, have developed a method to produce hydrogen with high purity (99.99 per cent) from a methanol-water mixture at ambient pressure and temperature that uses only one-third of the electrical energy required in water electrolysis, according to a PIB release.
With near-zero or zero end-use emissions and continually replenished fossil fuel resources, hydrogen can be an ideal sustainable energy carrier and would play an immense role in the near future. Hydrogen is gaining much attention due to its high specific energy value of 40 kWh/kg as compared to chemical fuels like gasoline, diesel, liquid petroleum gas (12-14 kWh/kg). The most abundant raw material containing hydrogen is water. It is also present in natural gas, petroleum, and biomass, and they can form the source for the generation of hydrogen.
Water electrolysis and reformation of hydrocarbon like methane are common methods for the production of hydrogen. For India’s energy transition to clean fuels, adoption of green hydrogen from renewable energy, integrated water electrolysis process to generate energy would bring in significant benefits.
This method combines both the processes of electrolysis and reformation to produce hydrogen from methanol-water mixture by electrochemical methanol reformation (ECMR) at ambient pressure and temperature. The main advantage of this process is that the electrical energy needed to produce hydrogen is 1/3rd of water electrolysis (Practical water electrolysis requires 55-65 kWh/kg of hydrogen). This technology has been patented by ARC.
