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Hydrogen from solar energy, an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels?

There are new alternatives to fossil fuels which makes it possible to produce hydrogen using solar energy by breaking the chemical bond between oxygen and hydrogen. Some examples may be solar thermolysis, and solar thermal hydrogen via electrolysis. In this way it is possible to obtain economic and ecological hydrogen for its later use as fuel. Also, these alternatives are environmentally friendly, and ensures long-term energy security. Additionally, these advances represent a simple and inexpensive alternative to carry out the photoelectrochemical decomposition of water, since they can be used indefinitely, and they are composed of simple low-cost materials. Obtaining hydrogen efficiently is presented as fundamental for the development of renewable energies, and the reduction of CO2 emissions that, until now, were associated for obtaining this gas. The hydrogen obtained with this process could be used in the generation of electricity, burning it to produce heat or internal combustion engines of vehicles.

Figure 1: Routes of solar hydrogen productions (Hosseini, and Wahid, 2020)

 

Reference

Hosseini, S. E., & Wahid, M. A. (2020). Hydrogen from solar energy, a clean energy carrier from a sustainable source of energy. International Journal of Energy Research. J. Environ. Qual. 44(6), 4110–4131. https://doi.org/10.1002/er.4930
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  1. J SalinasNovember 19, 2020 at 12:26 PM

    I find this fascinating to learn about, especially in the advent of renewable energy replacing fossil fuels. After the Nikola motors incident, my hopes in using hydrogen have been reduced, since it became increasingly obvious that hydrogen powered vehicles are just as inefficient as their combustion engine counterparts. Using renewable energy, such as solar power or wind turbines to generate the electricity required to produce hydrogen to be used in vehicles by expending the hydrogen and creating electricity seemed nonsensical and redundant. My point being, I am hopeful we can use this method to synthesize hydrogen and use it for more useful machinery, such as rockets and other vehicles that cannot be substituted by electricity.

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