How Electrified Reactors Will Scale Hydrogen Carriers

Transporting green hydrogen over long distances is highly inefficient because converting it back from its liquid or chemical storage state wastes massive amounts of energy. Researchers have engineered a coating-integrated Joule heating system that dramatically reduces this energy penalty for hydrogen carriers.

While hydrogen carriers like ammonia and liquid organic compounds offer a stable way to ship renewable energy across oceans, the thermal energy required to release the gas at its destination has historically limited its commercial viability. Conventional external heating methods lose too much heat to the surrounding environment, driving up operational costs.

Electrifying Hydrogen Carriers

To bypass this limitation, researchers built a porous silicon carbide skeleton that acts as an electrothermal converter. By coating the catalyst directly onto this skeleton, they decoupled heat generation from catalytic function while preserving microscale thermal contact.

The team measured an ammonia decomposition rate of 5.6 mol of hydrogen per gram of catalyst per hour using just 23.4 watts of power. For liquid organic carriers, the platform achieved 86.6% cyclohexane conversion at a power input of 5.5 watts, matching the performance of traditional thermal catalysis at 280 °C.

Downstream Applications

This direct-heating approach suggests we could soon deploy compact, highly efficient extraction units at ports and fuelling stations. Over the next decade, this technology may decentralise clean energy distribution.

Potential downstream applications include:

• On-demand hydrogen refuelling stations for heavy-duty trucking networks, bypassing the need for high-pressure gas transport.
• Direct integration with industrial steel manufacturing plants to replace coal with clean-burning gas.
• Localised clean power generation systems for remote maritime ports and off-grid communities.