IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v231y2018icp502-533.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A comprehensive review of carbon and hydrocarbon assisted water electrolysis for hydrogen production

Author

Listed:
  • Ju, HyungKuk
  • Badwal, Sukhvinder
  • Giddey, Sarbjit

Abstract

Hydrogen is mainly produced by natural gas reforming, which is a highly efficient process with low feedstock costs. However, the rising interest in clean technologies will increase the demand for hydrogen, meaning that other sources will need to be explored. Although coal is currently the major source of power generation, its demand appears to be declining due to the rise in electricity generated from renewable energy sources and the worldwide quest for low-emission power generation. Coal reserves worldwide are abundant, but new technologies would be needed to produce hydrogen from this feedstock. Coal gasification is one well-established technology for this purpose, but it is inefficient and produces high CO2 emissions. An alternative technology that has been investigated over the past few decades is carbon assisted water electrolysis. The basic process is water/steam electrolysis, with part of the energy required for the electrolysis provided by the chemical energy of coal, which reduces the overall electrical energy input. In addition to coal, the process can also use other carbon sources, such as biomass, alcohols or gaseous hydrocarbons. Several studies have investigated this electrochemical route of hydrogen production, employing different electrolytes in a wide temperature range (room temperature to 850 °C) under different process conditions. This paper presents a comprehensive review of carbon assisted water electrolysis, associated materials used and the challenges for the development of the technology at the commercial scale.

Suggested Citation

  • Ju, HyungKuk & Badwal, Sukhvinder & Giddey, Sarbjit, 2018. "A comprehensive review of carbon and hydrocarbon assisted water electrolysis for hydrogen production," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 502-533.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:231:y:2018:i:c:p:502-533
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.09.125
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261918314314
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.09.125?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruce C.R. Ewan & Olalekan D. Adeniyi, 2013. "A Demonstration of Carbon-Assisted Water Electrolysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-12, March.
    2. Aboobacker, V.M. & Shanas, P.R. & Alsaafani, M.A. & Albarakati, Alaa M.A., 2017. "Wave energy resource assessment for Red Sea," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(PA), pages 46-58.
    3. Muthumeenal, A. & Pethaiah, S. Sundar & Nagendran, A., 2016. "Investigation of SPES as PEM for hydrogen production through electrochemical reforming of aqueous methanol," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 75-82.
    4. Ioannidou, O. & Zabaniotou, A., 2007. "Agricultural residues as precursors for activated carbon production--A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 11(9), pages 1966-2005, December.
    5. Sukhvinder P.S. Badwal & Sarbjit Giddey & Christopher Munnings, 2013. "Hydrogen production via solid electrolytic routes," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(5), pages 473-487, September.
    6. ., 2017. "The Global Energy System," Chapters, in: Global Infrastructure Networks, chapter 5, pages 155-207, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Ge, Lan & Gong, Xuzhong & Wang, Zhi & Zhao, Lixin & Wang, Yuhua & Wang, Mingyong, 2016. "Insight of anode reaction for CWS (coal water slurry) electrolysis for hydrogen production," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 372-382.
    8. Y. X. Chen & A. Lavacchi & H. A. Miller & M. Bevilacqua & J. Filippi & M. Innocenti & A. Marchionni & W. Oberhauser & L. Wang & F. Vizza, 2014. "Nanotechnology makes biomass electrolysis more energy efficient than water electrolysis," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 5(1), pages 1-6, September.
    9. Christophe Coutanceau & Stève Baranton, 2016. "Electrochemical conversion of alcohols for hydrogen production: a short overview," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(4), pages 388-400, July.
    10. Guo, Lifeng & Wang, Ligong & Xiao, Peng, 2017. "5-regular oriented graphs with optimum skew energy," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 301(C), pages 43-59.
    11. Ehteshami, S. Mohsen Mousavi & Vignesh, S. & Rasheed, R.K.A. & Chan, S.H., 2016. "Numerical investigations on ethanol electrolysis for production of pure hydrogen from renewable sources," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 388-393.
    12. Sukhvinder P.S. Badwal & Sarbjit Giddey & Christopher Munnings, 2018. "Emerging technologies, markets and commercialization of solid‐electrolytic hydrogen production," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), May.
    13. Jacopo Bonan, 2017. "Access to Energy and Economic Development in Ghana," Reports, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, December.
    14. Gong, Xuzhong & Wang, Mingyong & Liu, Yang & Wang, Zhi & Guo, Zhancheng, 2014. "Variation with time of cell voltage for coal slurry electrolysis in sulfuric acid," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 233-239.
    15. Lisboa, A.C. & Vieira, T.L. & Guedes, L.S.M. & Vieira, D.A.G. & Saldanha, R.R., 2017. "Optimal analytic dispatch for tidal energy generation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 371-379.
    16. Badwal, S.P.S. & Giddey, S. & Kulkarni, A. & Goel, J. & Basu, S., 2015. "Direct ethanol fuel cells for transport and stationary applications – A comprehensive review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 80-103.
    17. Wang, Mingyong & Wang, Zhi & Gong, Xuzhong & Guo, Zhancheng, 2014. "The intensification technologies to water electrolysis for hydrogen production – A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 573-588.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Campuzano, Felipe & Brown, Robert C. & Martínez, Juan Daniel, 2019. "Auger reactors for pyrolysis of biomass and wastes," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 372-409.
    2. Lee, Rachel & Homan, Samuel & Mac Dowell, Niall & Brown, Solomon, 2019. "A closed-loop analysis of grid scale battery systems providing frequency response and reserve services in a variable inertia grid," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 236(C), pages 961-972.
    3. Pandžić, H. & Dvorkin, Y. & Carrión, M., 2018. "Investments in merchant energy storage: Trading-off between energy and reserve markets," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 230(C), pages 277-286.
    4. Smith, Kate & Liu, Shuming & Liu, Ying & Guo, Shengjie, 2018. "Can China reduce energy for water? A review of energy for urban water supply and wastewater treatment and suggestions for change," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 41-58.
    5. Kavvadias, Konstantinos C. & Quoilin, Sylvain, 2018. "Exploiting waste heat potential by long distance heat transmission: Design considerations and techno-economic assessment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 452-465.
    6. Shamsi, Mohammad Haris & Ali, Usman & Mangina, Eleni & O’Donnell, James, 2020. "A framework for uncertainty quantification in building heat demand simulations using reduced-order grey-box energy models," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 275(C).
    7. Zhou, Wei & Chen, Shuai & Meng, Xiaoxiao & Li, Jiayi & Huang, Yuming & Gao, Jihui & Zhao, Guangbo & He, Yong & Qin, Yukun, 2022. "Two-step coal-assisted water electrolysis for energy-saving hydrogen production at cell voltage of 1.2 V with current densities larger than 150 mA/cm2," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    8. Cornago, Elisabetta & Dressler, Luisa, 2020. "Incentives to (not) disclose energy performance information in the housing market," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    9. Trotta, Gianluca, 2018. "The determinants of energy efficient retrofit investments in the English residential sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 175-182.
    10. World Bank Group, 2018. "Commodity Markets Outlook, April 2018," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 29721.
    11. Watson, S.D. & Lomas, K.J. & Buswell, R.A., 2019. "Decarbonising domestic heating: What is the peak GB demand?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 533-544.
    12. Theocharis, Dimitrios & Rodrigues, Vasco Sanchez & Pettit, Stephen & Haider, Jane, 2019. "Feasibility of the Northern Sea Route: The role of distance, fuel prices, ice breaking fees and ship size for the product tanker market," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 111-135.
    13. Oliva H., Sebastian & Passey, Rob & Abdullah, Md Abu, 2019. "A semi-empirical financial assessment of combining residential photovoltaics, energy efficiency and battery storage systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 206-214.
    14. Chen, Shuai & Zhou, Wei & Ding, Yani & Zhao, Guangbo & Gao, Jihui, 2021. "Fe3+-mediated coal-assisted water electrolysis for hydrogen production: Roles of mineral matter and oxygen-containing functional groups in coal," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    15. Fan, Yuqiang & Guan, Jun & He, Demin & Hong, Yu & Zhang, Qiumin, 2023. "The influence of inherent minerals on the constant-current electrolysis process of coal-water slurry," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    16. Maricic, Vesna Karovic & Danilovic, Dusan & Lekovic, Branko & Crnogorac, Miroslav, 2018. "Energy policy reforms in the Serbian oil sector: An update," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 348-355.
    17. Huang, Yuming & Zhou, Wei & Xie, Liang & Li, Jiayi & He, Yong & Chen, Shuai & Meng, Xiaoxiao & Gao, Jihui & Qin, Yukun, 2022. "Edge and defect sites in porous activated coke enable highly efficient carbon-assisted water electrolysis for energy-saving hydrogen production," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 283-292.
    18. Hu, Bo & Xu, Lianfei & Li, Yang & Sun, Fei & Wang, Zhuozhi & Yang, Mengchi & Zhang, Yangyang & Kong, Wenwen & Shen, Boxiong & Wang, Xin & Yang, Jiancheng, 2024. "Biochar and Fe2+ mediation in hydrogen production by water electrolysis: Effects of physicochemical properties of biochars," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 297(C).
    19. Ringkjøb, Hans-Kristian & Haugan, Peter M. & Solbrekke, Ida Marie, 2018. "A review of modelling tools for energy and electricity systems with large shares of variable renewables," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 440-459.
    20. Ge, Lan & Gong, Xuzhong & Wang, Zhi & Zhao, Lixin & Wang, Yuhua & Wang, Mingyong, 2016. "Insight of anode reaction for CWS (coal water slurry) electrolysis for hydrogen production," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 372-382.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:231:y:2018:i:c:p:502-533. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.