hydrogen is the fuel of the future its energy density is suppressed only by nuclear Fuel and
its only emissions are water Vapors we've been hearing this for quite a while but
hydrogen hasn't really lived up to the hype just yet and it's because it has some major
challenges to overcome but there may finally be some amazing breakthroughs happening that
can finally take hydrogen from a pie in the sky idea to actually changing the landscape
of energy on this planet let's figure this all out together I'm Ricky and this is Two Bit DaVinci
[Music] this video is sponsored by 3M
hydrogen by all measure sounds like an absolute no-brainer for the future of fuel to replace coal
natural gas and oil for everything from electric vehicles to energy storage to airplane ships and
Industrial applications like steel production this is for good reason because hydrogen is
the most abundant element in the universe well that's true but it's tricky we'll get back to
that here in just a minute now we've covered hydrogen before on this channel links in the
description so we won't go too deep into the pros and cons here but hydrogen has plenty going for
it after nuclear energy hydrant has the highest specific energy density of any known fuel packing
33.3 killed hours per kilogram which is three times more punch in the same amount of mass as
the best fossil fuels but before you get too excited when you talk about the challenges in
the United States there are only around 40 public hydrogen charging stations compared to over 168
000 gasoline stations the cost of installing a hydrogen fueling station is really high and the
demand is really low so a risky investment and one not many are willing to take just yet some
of the key challenges are one hydrogen production two distribution and three it's overall efficiency
I'm going to focus on the production side of the equation in this video remember when I said
hydrogen is the universe's most abundant element well yes that is true but hydrogen is so light
that it really readily escapes the atmosphere and floats off into space so the hydrogen that
we actually have on Earth is bonded to other compounds like water and separating hydrogen
isn't easy for this reason most of the hydrogen we have today actually comes from Steam methane
reforming of natural gas doesn't exactly sound the fuel of the future does it so hydrogen only makes
sense if we can produce it in a clean way and that has led us to another problem there are a lot of
ways to split water into hydrogen and oxygen but one of the most promising ways is by using
a proton exchange membrane or pem to make this work requires Catalyst to dry have the necessary
chemical reactions here's a quick breakdown of how a pem electrolyzer works it looks a bit like
a battery or fuel cell with an anode cathode a proton exchange membrane and a solid polymer
electrolyte that conducts protons but insulates the electrodes electrically well electricity is
provided via solar panels or wind turbines in the case of green hydrogen two reactions occur on the
anode side the half reaction that takes place is called the oxygen Evolution reaction here
the liquid water is oxidized to oxygen protons and electrons in the presence of a catalyst and
the best performing and long lasting catalyst is iridium oxide we'll get back to that in just a
bit the half reaction taking place on the cathode side is the hydrogen Evolution reaction here the
supplied electrons and the protons that pass through the membrane are combined to create
gaseous hydrogen the problem lies in the fact that iridium is one of the rarest elements on
Earth here's a list of the abundance of chemical elements in the Earth's crust pay close attention
to lithium nickel manganese and Cobalt elements used in lithium ion batteries Based on data from
web elements lithium makes up 17 parts per million nickel 90. manganese 1100 and Cobalt
30. but iridium is all the way at the bottom at 0.0004 parts per million making one of the rarest
elements on Earth but before we get into the link to about our sponsor this week 3M 3M forward is
a new program that highlights how material science-based Innovations at scale can help
Society progress amid three Unstoppable forces shaping our planet climate change and resource
scarcity shifting demographics and social change and convergence of the physical and digital worlds
these forces are known as megatrends through the lens of climate change and resource scarcity 3M
is helping to Spotlight how hydrogen could be the fuel of the future to learn more about 3M
check out some of the links down below they're working on all sorts of problems that are going
to completely change the world huge thanks to 3M and you for supporting the show I have learned so
much about iridium in the research of this video so it's fun facts time let's talk iridium first of
all it's incredibly dense along with osmium the two densest metals on Earth denser than gold or
platinum this combined with its tendency to bond with iron has led scientists to believe that most
of the Iridium on Earth sank into the molten core in the early formation of Earth iridium is found
in meteorites at a much higher concentration than in the Earth's crust when the clay layer
at the Cretaceous paleogene boundary displayed a high concentration of iridium it led to the
Alvarez hypothesis that the extension of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was caused by the
impact of massive extraterrestrial objects this hypothesis was later confirmed by the discovery
of the Chick-fil-A crater off the coast of Mexico so iridium it's scarcity and abundance in one
layer of the Earth's crust led to the eventual hypothesis of what wiped out the dinosaurs how
cool is that iridium predominantly comes from as a mining byproduct of platinum in South Africa so
it's generally believed that the supply the amount that's entering the market every year is pretty
much fixed at about seven and a half tons per year this graphic from the visual of capitalist really
helps put it in perspective but it's not just rare it's expensive too according to unicor as
of May 2023 iridium prices are 162 242 dollars per kilogram compared to 62 586 for gold this matters
because the US Department of energy in 2021 launched its first ever Earth shot initiative
on hydrogen to Spur Innovation investment and research its goal can be summarized by one one one
to bring down prices eighty percent to just one dollar per kilogram in one decade this is a really
ambitious goal but it's neither crazy or new we've seen what large-scale Innovation investment in
lithium on batteries for example have done what if we could get the benefits of virudium as a pem
catalyst for hydrogen production while reducing how much of it we actually need it enter the
nanostructure supported iridium Catalyst powder a breakthrough in Material Science that allows us to
use vastly less iridium so this is a an example of the Catalyst powder itself it's a fine black
powder and this jar contains about 10 grams of the Catalyst it's really pretty small if you look
under it look at it under a really high resolution microscope you can see that each of the particles
are actually Rod shaped and about a thousand times smaller than the size of a human hair this iridium
Catalyst powder increases the surface area of the Iridium allowing to perform as a catalyst
while needing significantly less so those simple laboratory backyard electrolyzers that you might
do in science class the principles overall are the same you have two electrodes across some water you
apply a voltage across it it'll split the water the the real challenge with that sort of level of
technology is a couple fold one is the efficiency of the device is not very good where the Catalyst
comes into plays it really boosts the efficiency up to the point that it can be economically
interesting the other points is the lifetime and durability of those simple electrodes that you're
referring to would probably only last a period of a few hours whereas in real applications the
catalysts and these electrodes need to last on the order of 10 years a 2021 report by Morgan
Stanley expects Global electrolyzer capacities to increase to 150 gigawatts by 2030 and 1400
gigawatts by 2050 from just 0.3 gigawatts in 2020. the bottom line is this hydrogen truly is one of
the most puzzling energy sources I've ever come across yet it's filled with so much potential
thanks to breakthroughs from companies like 3M might this be the turning point for hydrogen
everyone said EVS were impossible because we could never make enough batteries until companies like
Tesla just started making their own batteries and doing just that over the course of a year
this 10 grams of catalyst can produce over 10 tons of hydrogen per year and 10 tons of
hydrogen is enough to drive a fuel cell car for example for 600 000 miles also and probably even
more importantly is its ability to impact climate typically hydrogen today is produced through the
reforming of hydrocarbons like natural gas and you emit a lot of carbon dioxide in that process
that 10 tons of hydrogen that were produced was produced by water electrolysis rather than through
reforming of natural gas you'd save about 100 tons of CO2 emissions every year could this be the very
moment for hydrogen we've seen it before when the stars align and Mining and raw material production
manufacturing Innovations and optimizations and when the supply and demand curves cross amazing
things can happen just look at solar panels here's a graph showing how prices have fallen
as manufacturing and capacity have increased and here's a graph showing falling prices for lithium
ion batteries in just a decade with breakthroughs like 3ams of nanostructure supported iridium
Catalyst powder reducing the need for iridium by a factor of 10 and other electrolyzer breakthroughs
the moonshot hydrogen goal of one dollar per kilogram in a decade kind of seems Within Reach
by the way at one dollar per kilogram factoring in fuel cell efficiency of just 60 percent you'd
be paying 5 cents per kilowatt hour for hydrogen three times cheaper than the average price for DC
fast charging with an electric car but I think the real future for hydrogen isn't in passenger cars
but in heavy Industries like steel production large cargo ships and Commercial aviation in
the case of hydrogen the challenges have always been around production doing so in a clean and
sustainable way and this might be one of the most exciting things I've seen that could make
that moonshot goal of a dollar per kilogram actually possible but what do you think what
does the future of hydrogen look like what other Innovations are needed sound off in the comments
below and if you thought that was a cool idea on hydrogen you gotta check out this video next