Many expect hydrogen cars as a solution for a smoke-free automobile without recharging problems or carrying a huge weight of batteries. But, today, it is not an efficient system. To produce hydrogen you have to “waste” a lot of energy, around 20 or 30%. The most efficient systems use 52.5 kWh of energy to create one kilogram of hydrogen that stores 39.4 kWh. An electric car battery would store almost all of it.
This handicap makes it very difficult for hydrogen to compete with fossil fuels or batteries in many applications. Could Australian company Hysata's capillary-fed electrolyser change that? Advertising 95% efficiency, it uses only 41.5 kWh of energy to create that kilogram of hydrogen. This not only reduces the operating costs of hydrogen but is cheaper to install and operate.
Its device, which separates H2 and O2 from water with an efficiency of 95%, approximately 20% more than the best conventional electrolyzers, has not only caught our attention. They have just raised 111 million dollars to increase production of what promises to be the cheaper green hydrogen of the world.
The key goal of Hysata's design, originally invented by scientists at the University of Wollongong, is to eliminate bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen gases in the electrolytic fluid between the anode and cathode. The bubbles are non-conductive and can adhere to the surface of the electrodes, so less of the electrode is exposed to the electrolyte. This adds resistance to the system and accounts for much of the energy that is wasted.
Hysata's design keeps the electrolyte at the bottom of the device and allows it to be drawn through a porous hydrophilic separator between the electrodes. Each electrode has full and direct contact with the electrolyte on the inner side and a dry chamber on the outer side: when the water rises through that tube and splits, the gases have nowhere to bubble. Resistance is greatly reduced and capillary action draws more water into the central separator without the need for any type of pump. This increases efficiency so much.
Hysata ensures that the efficiency of this cell reaches 98% under laboratory conditions, in research published in the journal Nature Communications. So, that 95% efficiency could be a realistic figure in the real world.
With the new funds obtained, the company will expand its production capacity in New South Wales, and further develop its technology. The objective is clear, to transport more energy per weight than batteries and offer a solution to sectors that are difficult to decarbonize, such as aviation, maritime transport, heavy machinery or road transport.
Hysata – like other electrolyzer manufacturers – faces some difficult market conditions in the near term. According to BloombergNEF research, the problem in today's electrolyzer market is not supply, cost or efficiency, but demand. Only one electrolyzer company made a profit last year. Aid is very slow in the United States and the European Union, which is why orders are delayed. Thus, the production of electrolyzers in 2023 was seven times greater than on demand.
Despite the unfavorable context (which shows that this commitment to hydrogen often remains in political programs), this Hysata technology manages to waste minimal renewable energy and that is undoubtedly good news.
Via: Nature Communications
