The challenge of using hydrogen in tackling climate change is that this efficient energy is hard to store and transport.
Hydrogen can be stored as a gas or liquid but it’s difficult to keep it in a container. Storage as a gas typically requires high-pressure tanks. However, storing hydrogen as a liquid requires cryogenic temperatures because the boiling point of hydrogen at one-atmosphere pressure is -252.8°C.
In a scientific breakthrough, researchers from Melbourne’s Deakin Institute for Frontier Material have discovered a novel way to store and transport large amounts of Hydrogen.
This discovery will help in overcoming the key challenge of hydrogen storage
This efficient way will allow huge quantities of green hydrogen to be stored and transported safely in solid form.
The method is highly affordable and creates no waste
The method is known as ‘ball milling’, in which a cylinder containing steel balls sees the gas combined with boron nitride powder. A mechanochemical reaction absorbs the gas into the powder and stores it there. Once absorbed into this solid-state material, the gas can be transported safely and easily. When the gas is needed, the powder is simply heated in a vacuum to release the gas unchanged.
