Electrosynthetic approaches to hydrogen production for a net zero future encompassing new materials paradigms

As the international community is focused on the development of low (or net zero) carbon technologies it is imperative that efficient and effective routes to produce alternative fuels are developed. Leading governments worldwide have made significant commitments to the use of hydrogen as a future fuel, and proposed several renewable routes to produce significant volumes of hydrogen for use in transport and in both domestic and industrial settings. However transport and storage of hydrogen are issues that need to be addressed before widespread adoption of hydrogen can be envisaged. As an energy carrier ammonia, with significant hydrogen content, has been considered attractive as this hydrogen carrier is produced industrially at volume and has an international transport infrastructure. The current disadvantage with ammonia is that the synthesis of this has a large carbon footprint, relying on steam methane reforming to produce the hydrogen required to synthesis ammonia. Assuming that green ammonia can be produced, the remaining issue is the availability of effective earth abundant materials for the catalytic decomposition of ammonia, and the separation of the resultant gas streams. In this project we will develop new catalysts for ammonia decomposition and couple these with separation technologies: direct electrolysis and permeation membranes. These two solutions will offer complementary devices that are scalable and that can be deployed easily at locations where hydrogen is required.