This mid-term report details the progress thus far in proving the technical feasiblity of storing and transporting hydrogen in a novel slurry material, which could be cheaper and more practical than liquefying it.
Report extract
The aim of this project is to develop an integrated system for storage of electricity from renewable energy and export the stored energy as hydrogen within hydrogenated carbon-based material. The project commenced in August 2018, and reached its second milestone on 1 July 2020. This summary presents progress up to this date.
A novel ‘proton flow reactor’ system for producing hydrogenated carbon(C) based powder for bulk export is being developed. This reactor – a novel and scaled-up extension of RMIT’s innovative proton battery concept – will use electricity from renewables to split water and charge a stream of C- particles in a slurry electrode with the protons produced.
This system offers a zero-emission and environmentally-benign solution to production of exportable hydrogenated material from renewable energy and abundant carbon primary sources for conversion to electricity overseas. It may also store intermittent renewable energy on electricity grids at various scales.
RMIT’s industry partner in this project is Eldor Corporation, Italy; and the International Institute for Carbon Neutral Energy Research and Kyushu University in Japan are academic research partners.