In recent decades, growing resources have been invested in the field of hydrogen as a raw material that aligns with the vision of a green economy and the use of sustainable energy. Hydrogen production is not a new process, but the aspiration to protect the environment and improve efficiency presents numerous technological challenges.
A group of researchers at the Technion and Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology is presenting a breakthrough in the field – a development expected to significantly improve hydrogen storage capacity for future use.
Growing awareness of the environmental damage caused by human activity – industry, transportation, electricity generation, and more – has led to massive investment in alternative energy sources. One of the challenges of these energy sources is the need for energy storage, since sources such as wind and solar are highly variable, unlike conventional power plants and standard vehicle batteries.
This creates an urgent need for efficient, non-polluting storage technologies. In this context, hydrogen is a promising material, and hydrogen storage systems are therefore being developed, such as hydrogen tanks for vehicle propulsion.
This is a pioneering development based on tiny, precise arrays of palladium particles. The research was recently published in the journal Nature Communications. The innovation presented in the paper is expected to impact hydrogen-powered transportation, clean energy solutions for industry, and more. The Technion research team was led by faculty members from the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, Prof. Eugen Rabkin, a leading expert with many years of experience in the hydrogen field, and doctoral student Yonatan Zimmerman.
The two explain: “The new knowledge is expected to contribute to the improvement of safer and more efficient storage systems, the development of reliable sensors, and the design of advanced membranes for hydrogen separation. In addition, the research findings will help extend the lifespan of critical components in hydrogen-based technologies – an important pillar in the transition to a green economy.”
Palladium is a metal that is highly effective at absorbing hydrogen and is therefore highly relevant to the clean energy field, including hydrogen storage. It is currently known that palladium’s properties in this context improve when it is produced in the form of nanometer-scale particles. Accordingly, researchers from the Technion and Chalmers created tiny, ordered arrays of palladium particles and monitored hydrogen absorption into these particles and its release from them. Through precise tuning, the researchers achieved a dramatic improvement in the rate of hydrogen absorption by the particles and in the pressure of the released hydrogen.
According to their assessment, these findings are expected to enhance the use of palladium for hydrogen storage and additional applications. The Israeli research group was supported by the Israel Science Foundation, and the Swedish group was supported by the Wallenberg Foundation.
Many countries have committed to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and hydrogen is a critical component in achieving this goal. The reason is that hydrogen serves as an alternative fuel to coal, oil, and fossil gas, and its use is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from various sources, including transportation, materials and chemical production, and domestic and industrial heating. Unlike these fuels, which emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when burned, the use of hydrogen produces clean water and is therefore considered a clean fuel for transportation, industry, energy storage, heating, and more.