Making hydrogen fuel cheap

Hydrogen is pretty common, both in the Universe (roughly 75% of the baryonic mass of the Universe is H) and on the Earth (it makes up 15% of the crust, oceans included which is what matter to us in terms of being able to get it).
It is also a very good fuel but the downsize is that it is bounded to other atoms in a very strong coupling. Breaking this coupling to free H is costly. Splitting H from Oxygen, O, in a water molecule is done today using platinum as a catalyst and that is pretty expensive.
Most of today’s production of H starts from Methane, CH4, and therefore requires fossil fuels hence this system does not fulfil our goal of replacing fossil fuels with H.
Researchers at Rutger have worked out a way to split water molecules using carbon nanotubes instead of platinum, thus significantly reducing the cost.
The splitting takes place through electrolyses, which of course requires electrical power but this can be generated using renewable sources, like photovoltaic and wind turbine, so you can produce H in a clean way. The effectiveness of the carbon nanotubes catalyses compares to the one based on the much more expensive platinum.

About Roberto Saracco

Roberto Saracco fell in love with technology and its implications long time ago. His background is in math and computer science. Until April 2017 he led the EIT Digital Italian Node and then was head of the Industrial Doctoral School of EIT Digital up to September 2018. Previously, up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre in Venice, looking at the interplay of technology evolution, economics and society. At the turn of the century he led a World Bank-Infodev project to stimulate entrepreneurship in Latin America. He is a senior member of IEEE where he leads the New Initiative Committee and co-chairs the Digital Reality Initiative. He is a member of the IEEE in 2050 Ad Hoc Committee. He teaches a Master course on Technology Forecasting and Market impact at the University of Trento. He has published over 100 papers in journals and magazines and 14 books.