Hydrogen production from renewable and sustainable energy resources: Promising green energy carrier for clean development

Abstract

Fossil fuel consumption in transportation system and energy-intensive sectors as the principal pillar of civilization is associated with progressive release of greenhouse gases. Hydrogen as a promising energy carrier is a perfect candidate to supply the energy demand of the world and concomitantly reduce toxic emissions. This article gives an overview of the state-of-the-art hydrogen production technologies using renewable and sustainable energy resources. Hydrogen from supercritical water gasification (SCWG) of biomass is the most cost effective thermochemical process. Highly moisturized biomass is utilized directly in SCWG without any high cost drying process. In SCWG, hydrogen is produced at high pressure and small amount of energy is required to pressurize hydrogen in the storage tank. Tar and char formation decreases drastically in biomass SCWG. The low efficiency of solar to hydrogen system as well as expensive photovoltaic cell are the most important barriers for the widespread commercial development of solar-based hydrogen production. Since electricity costs play a crucial role on the final hydrogen price, to generate carbon free hydrogen from solar and wind energy at a competitive price with fossil fuels, the electrical energy cost should be four times less than commercial electricity prices.