The US Department of Energy (DOE) released a Notice of Intent (NOI) (DE-FOA-0002768) to fund the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s (BIL) $8-billion program to develop regional clean hydrogen hubs (H2Hubs) across America. H2Hubs will create networks of hydrogen producers, consumers, and local connective infrastructure to accelerate the use of hydrogen as... Read more →

Toyota Motor and its subsidiary, Woven Planet Holdings have developed a working prototype of its portable hydrogen cartridge. This cartridge design will facilitate the everyday transport and supply of hydrogen energy to power a broad range of daily life applications in and outside of the home. Toyota and Woven Planet... Read more →

Airbus is sterngthening its presence in the UK with the launch of a Zero Emission Development Center (ZEDC) for hydrogen technologies. A priority for the UK ZEDC will be the development of a cost-competitive cryogenic fuel system required for the successful entry-into-service of Airbus’ ZEROe passenger aircraft (earlier post) by... Read more →

Germany will invest up to €290 million to launch the Innovation and Technology Center for Hydrogen (Innovations- und Technologiezentrum für Wasserstoff, ITZ H2), following the positive conclusion of a feasibility study (German only). The Innovation and Technology Center for Hydrogen (ITZ) is intended to support companies in their development activities... Read more →

Air Liquide, CaetanoBus and Toyota Motor Europe have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the aim of developing integrated hydrogen solutions. This will include infrastructure development and vehicle fleets to accelerate the expansion of hydrogen mobility for both light- and heavy-duty vehicles. The partnership reflects the shared ambition of the... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Queensland have show that a low-cost Mg-based hydrogen storage alloy is possible with only 1 wt% Si. A high hydrogen capacity of 6.72 wt% hydrogen is achieved via trace sodium (Na) addition. A paper on their work is published in the Journal of Power Sources.... Read more →

Hexagon Purus, which among its portfolio offers hydrogen high-pressure Type 4 cylinders and storage systems, has entered into an agreement to acquire 40% of Cryoshelter GmbH’s liquid hydrogen business. The transaction is in conjunction with Hexagon Composites’ acquisition of a 40% stake in Cryoshelter’s liquid natural gas (LNG) business. Cryoshelter’s... Read more →

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) is developing new technologies for the extraction of hydrogen from liquid organic hydrogen carriers, with the support of National University of Singapore (NUS) and industry collaborators in Singapore and Japan—including Chiyoda Corporation, PSA Corporation, Sembcorp Industries, City Energy, Jurong Port, Singapore LNG corporation and... Read more →

FlyZero is the UK’s Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) project aiming to realize zero-carbon emission commercial aviation by 2030. Funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the project FlyZero began in early 2021 as an intensive research project investigating zero-carbon emission commercial flight. The independent study brought together... Read more →

The US states of Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas have entered into a bipartisan three-state partnership to establish a regional hub for development, production, and use of clean hydrogen as fuel and manufacturing feedstock. In entering the agreement, the states intend to compete as a unit for funding established in the... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation has developed a storage module that integrates multiple 70 MPa automotive hydrogen tanks—already proven in the Mirai fuel cell vehicle (FCEV)—and safety devices such as a hydrogen detector and an automatic shut-off switch. Toyota has been working on initiatives toward realizing a hydrogen-based society, such as the... Read more →

Aberdeen (Scotland) City Council and bp have signed an agreement to form a joint venture partnership that will deliver a scalable green hydrogen production, storage and distribution facility in the city powered by renewable energy. The Aberdeen Hydrogen Hub is to be developed in three phases in response to growing... Read more →

A team from the US Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and Zhengzhou University in China has demonstrated a metal-free carbocatalyst—nitrogen-assembly carbons (NCs)—for the release of hydrogen from liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) even at ambient temperature, showing greater activity than transition metal–based catalysts. An open-access paper on their work is... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) released two Requests for Information (RFI) to collect feedback from stakeholders to inform the implementation and design of Regional Hydrogen Hub and the Electrolysis and Clean Hydrogen Manufacturing and Recycling programs per the IIJA (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), representing a combined $9.5-billion inverstment.... Read more →

BMW AG, Robert Bosch GmbH, TesTneT Engineering GmbH and Hexagon Purus are working together in research and advanced development of an innovative hydrogen storage system solution for future fuel cell passenger cars. The project called FlatHyStor—“Functional design and testing of an innovative hydrogen tank system”—with a total project budget of... Read more →

Researchers led by Andreas Stierle at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) have laid the foundations for an alternative method for storing hydrogen, using iridium-seeded palladium nanocluster superlattices with 1.2 nanometer cluster diameters. The team, which also includes researchers from the Universities of Cologne and Hamburg, published its findings in the journal ACS... Read more →

A microgrid based on renewable energies with hydrogen-powered fuel cells for emergency and peak power as well as hydrogen combustion engines can meet the special energy requirements of port facilities. A similar solution is being created in the near future for the Port of Duisburg’s new container terminal with mtu... Read more →

Two studies—led by a team from Seattle City Light, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and Sandia National Laboratories—are exploring the potential of shifting from fossil fuel to clean hydrogen as fuel to power medium-and heavy-duty vehicles. The studies will assess the issues associated with scaling up hydrogen infrastructure large enough... Read more →

Bosch has expanded its product portfolio for mobile hydrogen applications with components for hydrogen tank systems such as tank valves or pressure regulators. For this purpose, Bosch entered into an engineering partnership with the Italian specialist OMB Saleri in which the products are jointly further developed. Pressure regulator and tank... Read more →

Universal Hydrogen Co. (earlier post) has signed a letter of intent (LOI) with ACIA Aero Leasing (ACIA), a regional aircraft lessor with offices in Ireland, France, Canada, Mauritius, and South Africa. ACIA expects to place 10 firm orders for Universal Hydrogen’s ATR 72 conversion kits with additional purchase rights for... Read more →

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists have found that atomic disorder in certain boron-based hydrogen storage systems can potentially improve the rate of hydrogen uptake. An open-access paper on their work is published in Nature Communications. Metal boride surfaces and their single-layer variants—known as borophenes—are generally thought to feature a... Read more →

INOVYN, a subsidiary of INEOS, plans to upgrade existing production at its Runcorn Site so that it can supply compressed fuel-cell quality hydrogen to mobility and power generation sectors. This is part of more than €2 billion investment in green hydrogen announced by INEOS earlier. (Earlier post.) INOVYN, which has... Read more →

Hy Stor Energy LP, together with its strategic partner Connor, Clark & Lunn Infrastructure (CC&L Infrastructure), will develop, commercialize, and operate large-scale, long-duration green hydrogen hubs that will serve as a model for green hydrogen development efforts going forward. The first major project, the Mississippi Clean Hydrogen Hub, is under... Read more →

Plug Power has executed a definitive agreement to acquire Applied Cryo Technologies, Inc. (ACT), a leading provider of technology, equipment and services for the transportation, storage and distribution of liquefied hydrogen, oxygen, argon, nitrogen and other cryogenic gases. The transaction is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2021... Read more →

Universal Hydrogen closed a $62-million new funding round; the oversubscribed round was completed less than six months after the company’s Series A (earlier post), bringing total raised to $85 million. New investors in the round include Mitsubishi HC Capital; Tencent; Stratos; GE Aviation; Waltzing Matilda Aviation; Fourth Realm; Hawktail; Marc... Read more →

HYVIA, the joint venture between Renault Group and Plug Power (earlier post), has unveiled the Renault Master Van H2-TECH prototype. A large van for transporting goods, with 12 m3 of cargo volume and a range of up to 500 km, the van will be available in 2022. Master Van H2-TECH... Read more →

A consortium of public, private and academic experts led by Shell International Exploration and Production, Inc. (Shell), a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc, is working to enable large-scale liquid hydrogen (LH2) storage for international trade applications. Shell and the consortium partners—including McDermott’s CB&I Storage Solutions, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center,... Read more →

Air Liquide and Faurecia signed a joint development agreement to design and produce on-board liquid hydrogen storage systems for the automotive industry. Liquid hydrogen storage for fuel cell vehicles is well-suited for long-haul applications; with this technology, the amount of hydrogen stored is double that of gaseous hydrogen. As a... Read more →

Snam, the main Italian operator for the transport and dispatching of natural gas in Italy, launched HyAccelerator, a corporate global-scale startup acceleration program focused on hydrogen. The program kicked off with the first call for startups, dedicated to players active along the entire hydrogen value chain, from transportation to storage... Read more →

The Hydrogen Heavy Duty Vehicle Industry Group—comprising Air Liquide, Hyundai, Nel Hydrogen, Nikola Corporation, Shell and Toyota—has signed agreements with Tatsuno Corporation and Transfer Oil S.p.A. to industrialize globally-standard 70 MPa hydrogen heavy-duty vehicle high-flow (H70HF) fueling hardware components. The Industry Group was formed in February 2019 with the goal... Read more →

Governments need to move faster and more decisively on a wide range of policy measures to enable low-carbon hydrogen to fulfil its potential to help the world reach net zero emissions while supporting energy security, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in a new report. Currently, global production of low-carbon... Read more →

A typical method of hydrogen storage is physically storing hydrogen using compression or liquefaction; these methods require higher energy to increase storage capacity and expensive distributing infrastructure. To overcome these limitations, research efforts to store hydrogen chemically in liquid carriers, such as liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) or ammonia, have... Read more →

Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies GmbH has developed a technology that binds hydrogen gas with a carrier oil. (Earlier post.)This achievement led to the company being nominated for a 2021 German Entrepreneurial Award (Deutscher Gründerpreis). Hydrogenious’ LOHC technology bonds hydrogen molecules to the organic carrier (dibenzyltoluene) via an exothermic catalytic process. The... Read more →

Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and international collaborators used computational approaches, including explainable machine learning models, to elucidate new high-entropy alloys with attractive hydrogen storage properties and direct laboratory synthesis and validation. Solid-state hydrogen storage materials that are optimized for specific use cases could be a crucial facilitator of the... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation is entering a vehicle equipped with a developmental hydrogen-powered engine (earlier post) at the five-hour-long Super Taikyu Series 2021 Powered by Hankook Round 5 Suzuka S-tai, which takes place this weekend. Just as in Round 3 and Round 4, the vehicle will be entered under the ORC... Read more →

Energy company SG H2 Energy; the City of Lancaster, California; and Iwatani, Japan’s leading hydrogen industrial gas company and a developer of hydrogen refueling stations (HRS) in California, are launching California’s first closed-loop green hydrogen ecosystem for transportation. In May 2020, SG H2 announced it was bringing the world’s biggest... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Energy recently announced the Energy Earthshots Initiative aimed at accelerating breakthroughs of more abundant, affordable, and reliable clean energy solutions within the decade. The first Energy Earthshot, launched 7 June—Hydrogen Shot—seeks to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% to $1 per 1... Read more →

Octopus Hydrogen, Octopus Energy Group’s newly established hydrogen arm, will provide 100% green hydrogen to ZeroAvia’s R&D center at Cotswold Airport in the UK during the testing, certification and first commercial operations of its hydrogen-electric aircraft powertrain technology. (Earlier post.) ZeroAvia will supplement on-site electrolysis hydrogen production with supply from... Read more →

Addressing climate change requires not only a clean electrical grid, but also a clean fuel to reduce emissions from industrial heat, long-haul heavy transportation, and long-duration energy storage. Hydrogen and its derivatives could be that fuel, argues a commentary by four energy researchers in the journal Joule. However, they note,... Read more →

Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) has appointed Sumitomo, Chiyoda, Toyota Motor, Japan Research Institute and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking to conduct a feasibility study on the receiving and distribution business of hydrogen in Chubu Region. NEDO selected these joint contractors in the public offeriing for “Development of... Read more →

McDermott International, a premier, fully-integrated provider of engineering and construction solutions (ECS) to the energy industry, has joined a consortium of public, private and academic partners collaborating on a US Department of Energy (DOE) project—Demonstration and Framework for H2@Scale in Texas and Beyond. The project is supported by DOE’s Hydrogen... Read more →

Hyzon Motors Inc., a global supplier of hydrogen fuel-cell-powered commercial vehicles, has developed new onboard hydrogen storage system technology that it says is capable of reducing the weight and manufacturing cost of commercial vehicles powered by Hyzon’s hydrogen fuel cells. The new patent-pending onboard hydrogen storage system technology integrates lightweight... Read more →

Universal Hydrogen (earlier post) has signed LOIs with Icelandair Group (Iceland), Air Nostrum (Spain), and Ravn Air (Alaska) for aftermarket conversion of aircraft to hydrogen propulsion and for the supply of green hydrogen fuel using Universal Hydrogen’s modular capsules. Rendering of regional airplane with conversion kit and fuel capsules. Icelandair.... Read more →

BC is the first province in Canada to release a comprehensive hydrogen strategy. Part of CleanBC, the BC Hydrogen Strategy includes 63 actions for government, industry and innovators to undertake during the short term (2020-25), medium term (2025-30) and long term (2030 and beyond). These include: Incentivizing the production of... Read more →

Deutsche Bahn has selected Wystrach—a specialist in the transport and storage of gases—to provide a plug-and-play hydrogen refueling station for the joint H2goesRail project—a green hydrail mobility solution. With a view to replacing diesel, hydrogen generated from green electricity is forging a path toward climate neutrality. Refueling that’s as fast,... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is awarding $52.5 million to fund 31 projects to advance next-generation clean hydrogen technologies and support DOE’s recently announced Hydrogen Energy Earthshot initiative (earlier post) to reduce the cost and accelerate breakthroughs in the clean hydrogen sector. These 31 projects will focus on bridging... Read more →

A new $5-million program to be led by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, is intended to strengthen development of Australia’s hydrogen industry by supporting research, development and demonstration (RD&D) collaborations with international research organisations. The two-year Hydrogen RD&D International Collaboration Program is a key element in CSIRO’s recently-launched Hydrogen Industry... Read more →

A public-private partnership between Los Alamos National Laboratory and Southern California-based Oberon Fuels has secured funding from the US Department of Energy (DOE) to scale-up steam reforming technology to produce renewable hydrogen (rH2) from renewable dimethyl ether (rDME)—a novel pathway for reducing the carbon content of the global hydrogen supply.... Read more →

Airbus has established Zero-Emission Development Centers (ZEDCs) at its sites in Bremen (Germany) and in Nantes (France). The goal of the ZEDCs is to achieve cost-competitive cryogenic tank manufacturing to support the successful future market launch of ZEROe (earlier post) and to accelerate the development of hydrogen-propulsion technologies. In September... Read more →

The European Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC) published a policy brief showing that delivery of large amounts of renewable hydrogen over long distances could be cost-effective. This finding is important because access to sufficient amounts of renewable hydrogen at low cost is essential for achieving a climate neutral Europe by... Read more →