Next Generation Hydrogen Refuelling and Onboard Production Modules Project at IIT Madras

Next generation H2 refuelling stations and On-demand, On-board Retrofitting Production Modules

Objective

• To develop and demonstrate: Part A - Design and demonstration (working prototype) of H2 refuelling station and supply chain for on-site H2 production and distribution for a continuous supply. The hydrogen for this will be produced from water using solid-state materials (as mentioned in the patents), Part B - Design and development of onboard and on-demand H2 production retrofitting module, as a replacement for H2 cylinders, for use with existing H2-CNG units.

Description

• To solve the existing problems with H2 production we have a patented technique developed at IIT Madras which produces H2 from a set of solid-state materials by splitting the water on-demand and locally at the point of utilization. Here, the H2 is splitting the water chemically and utilizing the H2 stored in the hydrides which results in a large yield of production. Our method is safe and eliminates the huge production infrastructure, cost, and energy, Furthermore, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) we have carried out shows that our process is significantly green. In fact there are some process credits to the environment, which is an indicator of greenness. The by-products are also benign and easy to handle.

Impact

• The five-point value addition we offer to the existing hydrogen economy are: (i) hydrogen-on-demand, (ii) safe generation of hydrogen and avoidance of gas storage, (iii) greenness / eco-friendliness, (iv) scalability, (v) elimination of structural barriers (need for new technology etc.) and retrofittability (enabling ready use in existing CNG-H2 systems).