Life as we know on earth is said to be “A Carbon Based Life Form1” because the carbon atoms can bond with many other atoms to create complex hydrocarbons. These complex compounds are also sources of life & energy. Fossil fuels, such as Crude oil, coal, and natural gas (forming about 85% of the global energy demand), all are some form of hydrocarbons (CxHy), the complex compounds of Carbon & other elements. The carbon atoms are the “skeleton” and atoms of other elements get attached to them to create petroleum (crude oil) and natural gas, which serve as fuels, lubricants, and raw materials for the production of plastics, rubbers, solvents, explosives, and many other industrial chemicals. Most of these complex hydrocarbons (oil) normally occur naturally, and were formed by the forces of temperature and weight over millennia from the plant and animal fossils. These hydrocarbons, being liquid have excellent flexibility as fuel because of their transportability whereas other fuels being solid (coal) of gas (Natural Gas or Hydrogen) have limited portability. Also, with an energy of 42~47 MJ/kg, the oil contains over 50% more chemical energy than the highest quality of coal (17~25 MJ/ kg). With these two factors alone, one supertanker of 2 million barrels of oil can provide the same amount of energy as that of 30 full coal trains of 100 wagons, carrying 115 metric tons of coal each. While natural gas contains more energy (42~55 MJ/Kg), its gaseous nature makes it difficult to transport, & requires a complex network of piping. Crude oil also has many ingredients in it, in the form of hydrocarbon chains of different lengths, which once separated via distillation and cracking, are used in manufacturing a wide variety of products e.g. Kerosene, Gasoline, Diesel, Heavy fuel oils, Naphtha, Asphalt, BTX aromatics, refinery gas & even the Hydrogen also. So, when a large petroleum reserve was discovered, near Beaumont, Texas, in the year 1901 (“The Texas Oil Boom”), the so called “Energy Rush” started in the beginning of the 20th century, which was followed by then automobile revolution driven by ICEVs and pushed up the demand for oil as a transport & energy fuel to a much higher level. During the same time (i.e. around 1907) Bakelite2 was discovered by Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland. By 1910, Bakelite got commercialized. As it was cheap and durable, it quickly became the preferred choice to create many daily-use household items. During 1920~1950 more R&D in this field led to the creation of plastics like polyvinyl chloride (PVC), Plexiglas, polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and polyurethane (PU) foam, etc. Not to mention the tens of thousands of other chemical products such as paints, detergents, soaps, coatings, colorants, pharmaceuticals, and explosives were also derived from oil. This was just the beginning of the “Oil Age” or in other words “Plastic Age” – and both have a common meaning which is “Age of Hydrocarbons”.
Burning fossil fuels (hydrocarbons) has been under discussion from the time it was discovered, but has gained momentum in recent years as with consumption of hydrocarbons increasing exponentially, their impact is becoming dangerously serious over last few decades, impacting many life forms. It has been found facing right in front of us and thus has been covered in many studied related to environmental degradation, fall in AQI (Air Quality Index), fluctuating climatic conditions, and falling human health as well as global warming, rising sea levels, air pollution, acid rains, damage to marine life due to oil spills and ocean acidification.
Unfortunately, despite all these known negative impacts of using hydrocarbons (i.e. primarily Carbon), which contain two basic elements Carbon & Hydrogen, mankind somehow remained obsessed with only carbon and has worked hard to increase the energy yield from this element only, just because it was found to be easy to manage. No serious efforts were made to evolve Hydrogen as an alternative energy source, despite well-known fact that Hydrogen was an energy denser, a much better & cleaner contender of energy generation. However, the good part is that despite Hydrogen being the “Secondary Form Of Energy”, the focus is now shifting on Hydrogen because it is “THE SIMPLEST AND MOST ABUNDANT ELEMENT ON EARTH”. Considering all factors, today’s world is hurrying and trying to develop alternative fuels. Among various alternatives, Hydrogen fuel seems to have highest potential. For the past 40 years, environmentalists and several industrial organizations have been promoting Hydrogen fuel as the solution to almost all the problems risen due use of hydrocarbon based fuels and possesses all the key criteria for an ideal fuel such as inexhaustibility, cleanliness, and convenience. Hydrogen is now being evaluated and promoted worldwide as an environmentally benign replacement for gasoline, heating oil, natural gas, and other carbon fuels in both transportation and nontransportation applications. Similar to electricity, Hydrogen is a high-quality energy carrier, which can be used with an excellent efficiency and near-zero emissions at the point of use. It has been technically demonstrated that Hydrogen can be used for transportation, heating, and power generation, and could replace current fuels in all their present uses.
History of Hydrogen: In the early 1500s, the alchemist Paracelsus noted that when iron filings were added to sulfuric acid, it released bubbles that were flammable. In 1671 Robert Boyle made the same observation. However, neither followed up their observations and so when in 1766, Henry Cavendish collected these bubbles and observed them to be different from other gases, he was credited for discovering this “New Gas”. He later noticed that this gas when burned, forms water, thereby ending the belief that water was an element. The name “HYDRO-GEN”, meaning “the water-former”, was given by Antoine Lavoisier, in 1783. With an atomic number of 1, Hydrogen is the lightest known element & first in the Periodic table. At standard storage conditions, Hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula H2. It is colourless, odourless, tasteless, non-toxic, and highly combustible. Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical substance in the “Universe”, constituting roughly 75% of all normal matters. Stars such as the Sun are mainly composed of Hydrogen in the plasma state. Most of the Hydrogen on Earth exists in molecular forms such as water and organic compounds. It is also one of the most important and mysterious elements of the periodic table as it possesses many unique properties that predetermine its importance in various processes in physics, chemistry, and biology. In 1931, Harold Urey and his colleagues at Columbia University detected a second, rarer, form of Hydrogen which had twice the mass of normal Hydrogen, and they named it Deuterium (also known as Hydrogen-2). It was followed by the discovery of another form of Hydrogen, which was renamed Tritium (Hyddroge-3) in 1934 by the physicists Ernest Rutherford, M.L. Oliphant, and Paul Harteck, when deuterium was bombarded with high-energy deuterons. Tritium is radioactive with a half-life of 12.32 years.
However, to know & understand Hydrogen, we must go back in time of Big Bang, the instant when the universe is supposed to have started. The Big Bang is expected to have occurred between 13.3~13.9 billion years ago. Scientists estimate that at the tiny fraction of second, the temperature of the entire universe was about 1000 trillion degC post the explosion. What followed after Big-Bang, was the exponential expansion of the universe called the “period of cosmic inflation”. With time as the temperature fell down the protons and neutrons started to get formed, further cooling led to the next phase of transition, i.e. formation of physical forces and elementary particles in their modern forms. The emergence of neutral Hydrogen atoms throughout the universe occurred about 379,000 years after the Big Bang during the recombination epoch, when the plasma had cooled enough for electrons to remain bound to protons. Slowly, other substances were formed which went on to form the first stars and ultimately galaxies, quasars, clusters of galaxies, and super clusters etc. By virtue of being the very first element of Universe, Hydrogen dominates within the presently known universe as it is the most abundant element in the cosmos, (Hydrogen makes up 88.6% of the composition by weight and 93% of all the atoms in the known universe). The chemical evolution of the stars is crucially determined upon the Hydrogen fusion. In the interstellar space Hydrogen exists as separate molecules, atoms, and ions and can form molecular clouds of different sizes, density, and temperature.
On earth, Hydrogen is abundantly found in water (H2O) (which covers about 71% the Earth’s surface), in fossil fuels (Hydrocarbons), and in all plants and animals (human body is about 60% water) and yet Hydrogen (H2) is not a primary fuel in the same sense as natural gas, oil, and coal. There are no known geological deposits of Hydrogen from where it can be taken out as primary energy source, rather, Hydrogen is an energy carrier, like electricity & is a secondary form of energy. Global Hydrogen demand touched 94 MMMT in 2021, mainly driven by the recovery of industrial activities, post COVID-19 and this demand surpassed the historical maximum of 91.2 MMMT achieved in 2019. However, most of this demand was met by Hydrogen produced from fossil fuels (Hydrocarbons). As on date, the demand of Hydrogen has been mainly driven by traditional applications e.g. petro refineries and chemical sectors, with very limited penetration in new applications such as transport, industry, building heating, Hydrogen-based DRI4 (Direct Reduced Iron Making), bulk storage of energy & generation of power, & represents only 0.04% of global Hydrogen demand. Of late, most of this new demand is concentrated in road transport, which observed a significant increase in recent times, due to the accelerated deployment of FCEVs, particularly fuel cell driven heavy-duty trucks in China. By 2030 the Hydrogen demand is expected to touch around 180 MMMT, with nearly half of that demand is expected to come from new applications, particularly in heavy industry, power generation and the production of Hydrogen-based fuels (FCEVs). Unfortunately, major Hydrogen production today is still based on fossil fuel technologies. In today’s scenario, Hydrogen with low-emission represents less than 1% of total Hydrogen production. But on the brighter side, low-emission Hydrogen production grew by 9% in 2021, because of commissioning of projects across the global, when more than 200 MW of electrolysers started operating, including 160 MW in China (having more than 7700 heavy duty FCEV and more than 30 MW in Europe, driven by green energies.
Hydrogen As Alternative Fuel: Since the start of industrial revolution and increasing world population, which continuously desired higher living standard with better air quality, the energy demands have been continuously increasing. Unfortunately, as said many times above, most of this energy requirement, two-third of which is required for transportation and heating is met from petroleum or natural gas. Between 1901 (when the very first crude oil bore well was made in Texas) and 1908 (when Henry Ford introduced Model T), these two fuels had almost become energy standards. Still, the Hydrogen as clean energy retained its charm and kept on gaining more momentum as the permanent solution to the various environmental & other problems which were getting identified because of continually increasing consumption of fossil fuels. On March 18~20, 1974, the landmark theme conference was opened at the Playboy Plaza Hotel in Miami Beach, with the participation of more than 700 scientists from some 80 countries, where Hydrogen Energy System (HES) as the permanent solution, to the depletion of fossil fuels and the global environmental problems being caused by their utilization. It immediately caught the imagination and attention of socially contentious energy and environmental scientists and engineers. R&D activities around the world were initiated to develop the technologies needed for the introduction of the Hydrogen energy system. It took a quarter of a century to develop most of the technologies required. The Hydrogen energy system started making inroads in the energy field early in the 21st century when several types of fuel cells5 were developed for efficient conversion of Hydrogen to electricity, as well as heat. The USA, Germany, and Japan, started using fuel cells to produce electricity and to heat homes and buildings.
To be continued
- Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, and the 4th most abundant element in the universe by mass, after Hydrogen, Helium, and Oxygen. Carbon has enormous capacity to form complex compounds & thus about 45%~50% of all dry biomass on Earth has its compounds. These also include complex biological molecules which have carbon atoms bonded with other elements, especially Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur (collectively known as CHNOPS). The widespread abundance of Carbon, its ability to form stable far too many bonds with other elements
forming polymers at the Earth’s temperature enables it to serve as a common element of all known living organisms, hence this term - hard-setting plastic
- Isotopes are one of two or more forms of an element that have different physical characteristics but the same chemical characteristics
- Direct Reduced Iron (DRI), also called “Sponge Iron” in which Direct Reduction refers to solid-state process which reduces iron oxides to metallic iron at temperatures below the melting point of iron. Reduced Iron derives its name from this process which uses syngas, a mixture of H2 & CO.
- Though these fuel cells were conceived in the 19th century, powerful versions were not developed until 40 years ago. Unlike IC engines, these battery-like devices only produce pure water as their output while generating electricity
Prabhat Khare holds BE (Electrical) & a Gold Medalist from IIT, Roorkee. He is an Automotive (EV) & Engineering Consultant, as well as a Technology Article Writer. He is a Certified Energy Manager (BEE) & Lead Assessor for ISO 9K, 14K, 45K & 50K. He can be reached at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prabhatkhare2/.
