Hysata“If you remember blowing up a balloon or drinking a milkshake as a child, your cheeks would hurt because of the energy loss associated with blowing bubbles.”
Paul Barrett, the Dublin-born chief executive of Australian green energy company Hysata, explains the plan to produce the world’s cheapest hydrogen by eliminating bubbles.
The company, based in Port Kembla, an industrial centre south of Sydney, uses a well-known process called electrolysis, in which electricity is passed through water to split it into hydrogen and oxygen.
But Hysata has developed a special material that sits in the water and, according to the company, makes the electrolyzer significantly more efficient than competing products.
The company claims that it can use 20 percent less electricity to produce one kilo of hydrogen than with conventional methods.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element on Earth and, crucially, its use as a fuel or in industrial processes does not produce carbon dioxide (CO2).
Many see hydrogen as the solution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, especially in heavy industries such as steel and chemical production.
There are four variants of hydrogen production: green, grey, blue and black.
The green variant is produced using renewable energy, the grey variant is created by splitting methane into carbon dioxide and hydrogen, and the blue variant is produced in the same way, but the byproduct CO2 is captured and stored.
Black hydrogen is produced by partially burning coal.
However, a switch to green hydrogen will require a massive increase in its supply.
“The biggest challenge is probably ensuring that green hydrogen production is close enough to the point of demand and being able to regulate its supply,” explains Dr. Liam Wagner, Associate Professor at Curtin University in Adelaide.
“The biggest hurdle is production efficiency and the amount of energy required to carry out these processes.”
Getty ImagesRich in natural resources, Australia has long been the world’s quarry. It is an export-led nation; its coal has powered Japan, while its iron ore has underpinned much of China’s growth. Many hope hydrogen could follow.
“Hydrogen offers the opportunity to export energy to countries that cannot produce enough energy themselves, either in the form of hydrogen in liquid form or as ammonia, which I think is the most likely,” adds Dr Wagner.
Hysata hopes to play a role in this. His device was originally invented by researchers at the University of Wollongong in the state of New South Wales.
In a conventional electrolyzer, the bubbles in the water can stick to the electrodes, clogging the process and causing energy losses.
By using a sponge-like material between the electrodes, Hysata eliminates these annoying bubbles.
“It functions similarly to a kitchen sponge. It is just much thinner,” says Mr Barrett.
“It’s quite simple to produce and extremely cost-effective,” he adds.
Cost and efficiency have been major hurdles for the hydrogen industry, but Hysata recently raised $111 million (£87 million) in investment to boost its production.
Ema Frery“We are talking about natural hydrogen that comes directly from the earth,” explains Dr. Ema Frery, leader of a research team at CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency.
“Many rocks in Australia can produce hydrogen. We have many ancient granites that now lie close to the surface and can produce hydrogen through radiogenic processes.”
So-called geogenic hydrogen is also called white or golden hydrogen.
Dr Frery, a French-born geoscientist based in Western Australia, is investigating how it could be extracted, stored and used in a commercially viable way.
“A conventional hydrogen system can consist of a rock that can produce hydrogen at a certain rate, migration pathways, and a reservoir in which the hydrogen can be stored.
“Surface seepage at the surface of the reservoir can indicate the existence of a hydrogen system at depth,” she says. “This happens in other countries too. In Mali, people have been extracting natural hydrogen from the ground for more than ten years to generate electricity for a nearby village.”
Despite the research, some doubt that hydrogen will become a major export commodity for Australia.
One of them is the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a global research organization that promotes the use of renewable energy.
According to Amandine Denis-Ryan, executive director of Australia’s IEEFA, exporting hydrogen from Australia “would not make financial sense”.
“Transporting hydrogen would be prohibitively expensive. It requires extremely low temperatures and large quantities and is associated with high losses. Local use of hydrogen makes much more sense.”
She hopes that government funds will not be “wasted” on such projects.
Like bubbles on electrodes, new technologies and processes inevitably run into difficulties that hinder progress and reinforce doubts. But the architects of hydrogen progress are convinced that hydrogen technology will play a key role in our energy transition.
Bahman Shabani, a professor at the School of Engineering at RMIT University in Melbourne, is working on storing excess renewable energy using an electrolyzer, a storage tank and a fuel cell that together act like a battery.
“Hydrogen is becoming increasingly popular around the world. If you look at the levels of investment in China, Japan, Germany, Europe in general and the USA, for example, you can see the importance of this area everywhere.”
