Lowering the H2 cost in Methane Cracking Technology by use solid carbon as an Energy Storage Material

The Covid-19 lockdown provided us an invaluable opportunity to gather much needed real data to strongly argue for switching to a carbon emission free energy vector (eg. hydrogen) at earliest. As the world is now gradually moving to the post-Covid 19 peak era, by switching to hydrogen and renewable based energy system, we will be able to maintain the CO2 emission levels at that of the Covid-19 lockdown period. In fact, hydrogen could play a major role in all major areas of our energy landscape: namely domestic, transport and industry. However, for this transition to take place hydrogen has to successfully compete with current energy systems based on oil and gas resources. The economic case for it rests on two preconditions that complement each other; the first is that hydrogen can be produced affordably using environmental-friendly methods, and the second is that hydrogen utilization technologies will gain a significant market share in competition with other alternatives. In addition, technological advances in distributed hydrogen production would eliminate the stringent requirements in storage and transportation of hydrogen. Thermochemical and electrolytic methods are leading the scaled hydrogen production today, however, the cost of production is still a major barrier which prevent its adaptation at scale. As far as affordable hydrogen production is concerned, alternative and flexible production methods such as methane cracking are rapidly picking up today. Methane cracking which converts methane to hydrogen and capture carbon as a solid product, is a potential bridge technology during the transition to a sustainable hydrogen economy since it produces hydrogen with zero emissions of carbon dioxide. The process is flexible enough to alter the conditions to obtain value-added solid carbon (eg. single, double and multi-walled CNT, highly porous carbon). These solid carbon products are highly sought in many technology areas such as energy storage, air and water purification, food and beverage. This project is designed to investigates systematic alteration of process conditions to obtain value-added solid carbon specifically for energy storage area whilst high yield of hydrogen is still maintained. By doing this we aim to obtain high value-added carbon products and high yield of hydrogen. The project team will work with the Cambridge based Zinergy UK to industrial bench marking the solid-carbon and evaluate its commercial potential. (Zinergy UK is working to deliver flexible energy storage solutions for a wide range of areas including healthcare, defence and smart and remote working areas). Initially this project will recreate the current state-of-art hydrogen conversion levels and then analyse the resulting solid-carbon by-product to understand the growth process and its dependence on the
growth substrate/catalysts. EffecTech Group (a UK based gas specialist company) will provide methane for the project and gas handling training. Then, the individual process conditions will be studied (eg. temperature, catalyst formulation, methane flow rate) to obtain a series of solid-carbon products at high H2 generation yield. The carbon products will then be used in supercapacitor electrodes and evaluate the energy storage properties. Frequent sample exchange with Zinergy UK will ensure benchmarking and market value of solid carbon products that we will make.

The RI self-assessment of an individual's research projects will mean that the cohort have a high degree of understanding of the potential beneficial impact from their research on the economy, society and the environment. This then places the cohort as the best ambassadors for the CDT, hence most pathways to impact are through the students, facilitated by the CDT.

Industrial impact of this CDT is in working closely together with key industry players across the hydrogen sector, including through co-supervision, mentoring of doctoral students and industry involvement in CDT events. Our industrial stakeholders include those working on hydrogen production (ITM Power, Hydrogen Green Power, Pure Energy) and distribution (Northern Gas, Cadent), storage (Luxfer, Haydale, Far UK), safety (HSL, Shell, ITM Power), low carbon transport (Ulemco, Arcola Energy), heat and power (Bosch, Northern Gas).

Policy impact of the CDT research and other activities will occur through cohort interactions with local authorities (Nottingham City Council) and LEPs (LLEP, D2N2) through the CDT workshops and conference. A CDT in Parliament day will be facilitated by UKHFCA (who have experience in lobbying the government on behalf of their members) and enable the cohort to visit the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST), BEIS and to meet with local MPs. Through understanding the importance of evidence gathering by Government Departments and the role this has in informing policy, the cohort will be encouraged to take the initiative in submitting evidence to any relevant requests for evidence from POST.

Public impact will be achieved through developing knowledge-supported interest of public in renewable energy in particular the role of hydrogen systems and infrastructure. Special attention will be paid to demonstration of safety solutions to prove that hydrogen is not more or less dangerous compared to other fuels when it is dealt with professionally and systems are engineered properly. The public, who are ultimate beneficiaries of hydrogen technologies, will be engaged through different communication channels and the CDT activities to be aware of our work. We will communicate important conclusions of the CDT research at regional, national, and international events as appropriate.

Socio-economic impact. There are significant socio-economic opportunities, including employment, for hydrogen technologies as the UK moves to low carbon transport, heat and power supply. For the UK to have the opportunity to take an international lead in hydrogen sector we need future innovation leaders. The CDT supported by partners we will create conditions for and exploit the opportunities to maximise socio-economic impact.

Students will be expected in years 3 and 4 to undertake a research visit to an industry partner and/or to undertake a knowledge transfer secondment. It is expected these visits (supported by the CDT) will be a significant benefit to the student's research project through access to industry expertise, exploring the potential impact of their research and will also be a valuable networking experience.