A Further Step Toward Hydrogen Adoption

An interesting new development in the USA relating to the future of the hydrogen economy. Hydrogen has pretty good PR despite the obvious difficulties that would result in wide scale adoption - low energy density and its tendency to be a bit leaky being the first that spring to mind. Ammonia doesn't seem to catch the headlines but has been talked about for a while as a potential delivery system for hydrogen, as well as being a potential fuel itself.

The new catalysts being developed by Rice University, Syzygy Plasmonics and Princeton University suggest that the conversion of ammonia to hydrogen (for powering fuels cells etc.) could be achieved without expensive catalysts or processing conditions. Decentralising hydrogen production could solve many of the transport inefficiencies of hydrogen and lead to wider adoption. A link to the researchers' journal article in Science is at the bottom of the press release for those wishing to investigate further.