VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, visionary research, and development partnership has created a single movable system to produce hydrogen at an 80-90% efficiency rate. They were able to achieve this by combining devices that produce hydrogen from water and electricity from hydrogen.

With more people waking up to the fact that we need to transition from fossil fuels, hydrogen is becoming a popular option for helping to counter the climate crisis. Hydrogen can be used for fuel and energy storage and can be produced from water without emissions.

Traditionally hydrogen has been produced from raw fossil fuels like natural gas, which emits methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. However, it can also be produced in an electrolyzer by breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen using an electric current. When hydrogen and oxygen react in a fuel cell, they generate electricity and only water vapor is emitted. This, in turn, makes hydrogen an emission-free fuel.

The team at VTT has developed a reversible fuel cell system that research scientist Ville Saarinen explains here:

We developed a fuel cell electrolyzer system, i.e. a reversible fuel cell system, that produces hydrogen and when operated in reverse, electricity. The device can be installed e.g. in connection with a wind farm, making it possible to store environmentally friendly wind power as hydrogen and convert it back into electricity during peaks in consumption. The device fits in a 10ft shipping container and can easily be transported to a vehicle refueling station or connected to a chemical industry process that uses hydrogen as a raw material. The device can be implemented on a usable scale.

Traditional commercial electrolyzer technologies are based on Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) or alkali technology, which is also used for fuel cell vehicles. This technology has a low (around 60%) efficiency rate and bi-directional operation is not possible.

The team at VTT uses solid oxide cell (SOC) technology and reversible solid oxide cell (rSOC) technology. This can prove to be very useful for transitioning from fossil fuels into complete emission-free hydrogen. The rSOC provides the ability to utilize other fuels such as natural gas or biogas.

“Solid oxide cell technology and its required operating temperature of 700 degrees allow extremely high efficiency in hydrogen production. We can reach 80–90% with it,” said Saarinen.

VTT’s fuel cell team developed the fuel cell electrolyzer system as part of the three-year BALANCE-EU project that ended in November 2019.

The challenge moving forward with SOC technology will be the high cost. There is a high demand for the production of ceramic electrolytes and cell assembly, which pushes high prices.

As awareness shifts to the importance of saving the planet and producing clean energy, funding and tax money should follow suit to help cover these costs. Big business that has been polluting the air, ground, and water systems need to be held accountable to pay for these high costs.

It makes me happy to write about these new technologies, but it gets old that it seems to always come down to high costs as the reason things don’t transition at a faster rate. Let’s help move these technologies along by sharing and educating more people.