Prospects of membrane catalysis in hydrogen energetics. Mini review

Abstract

Hydrogen energetics is undoubtedly highly relevant today as it not only allows solving the issue of energy production from a renewable water source but can also prevent the formation of greenhouse gases. They say that any new idea is a well forgotten old one. The paper is dedicated to an excellent but still unimplemented work of Sainte-Claire Deville who managed to obtain hydrogen from water vapor using membrane technology. He used a clay pipe as a membrane which selectively permeated hydrogen. This process occurred with heating up to 950 °C. Sainte-Claire Deville managed to obtain only a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen in a ratio of 4:1 and then to clean the product from oxygen using chemical reactions. Modern membrane catalysts based on palladium or its alloys are selectively permeable only for hydrogen. This means that the membrane catalysis method with palladium membranes could allow to realize of hermal water disassociation more effectively and solve the issues of hydrogen energetics using only renewable raw materials. The history of hydrogen discovery and methods of its production was also studied in this review. Different methods of energy production were analyzed, including mineral resources, wind turbines, solar panels, hydroenergetics, electrolysis, and nuclear power, and a forecast was presented based on them. The review should be considered as an invitation to further discussions regarding this highly relevant and important topic