Mankind has come a long way, the intellect ability of homo sapiens has affected the planet and life in different ways. One way to look is that we have made things easy and humans are growing exponentially in every sector, be it healthcare, industrialization, space exploration, and many more but in that process what we are leaving behind is the thing (Carbon) that is damaging our planet.
Carbon emission, the main reason behind the rise in global temperatures around the world. The planet is heavily dependent on non-renewable resources like coal, petroleum, and other fuels that release Carbon on their consumption. Greenhouse gases are measured in ‘carbon dioxide-equivalents’ (CO2e). Today, we collectively emit around 50 billion tonnes of CO2e each year. This is more than 40% higher than emissions in 1990, which were around 35 billion tonnes.
The world is aware of the alarming situation as countries have agreed under the 2015 Paris Agreement to restrict global warming to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. To do that, the world will need to drastically curb its release of climate-warming emissions by 2030. This has driven researchers to look for cleaner and greener energy sources as alternatives.
IIT Delhi researchers generate clean fuel hydrogen from water at low-cost
An IIT Delhi research group under the supervision of Prof. Sreedevi Upadhyayula, Prof. Ashok N. Bhaskarwar, and Prof. Anupam Shukla from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Prof. Saswata Bhattacharya, Department of Physics have taken up the research for clean fuel production at low cost.
The team has been successful in their pilot project in which they have generated clean fuel hydrogen from water at a low-cost. In the study, researchers from IIT Delhi have successfully split water by a process known as Sulphur-Iodine (SI) thermochemical hydrogen cycle to generate low-cost, clean hydrogen fuel for industrial consumption. Hydrogen gas is a solid replacement for our fossil fuels as it will help in lowering carbon emissions.
Prof. Sreedevi Upadhyayula explained the process behind the technology and said “ Water can be split using Sulphur and Iodine at reasonable low temperatures and pressures. Otherwise, water cannot be split so easily into Hydrogen (H) and Oxygen (O). Water is a molecule that contains both Hydrogen and Oxygen, so if we can split water and get H2 from there, that will see a green way of getting future fuel called Hydrogen.
This technology is completely indigenous
” This technology of separating hydrogen fuel from water is completely indigenous. In developing this technology, the researchers were funded by the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). IIT Delhi researchers say that for the future we have to depend only on renewable sources of fuel. Problems related to the environment will also be solved by using renewable sources. That is why we have developed this technique.
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