A research group of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Delhi) has developed a pilot plant to generate hydrogen fuel from water at low cost. The project has been undertaken under the supervision of Prof Sreedevi Upadhyayula, Prof Ashok N Bhaskarwar and Prof Anupam Shukla from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Prof Saswata Bhattacharya, Department of Physics. The project was funded by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Energy Centre (OEC).
As part of the research the IIT Delhi team has successfully split water by a process known as Sulphur-Iodine (SI) thermochemical hydrogen cycle to generate low-cost, clean hydrogen fuel for industrial consumption. Hydrogen gas, a viable choice as a renewable substitute for fossil fuels, can help mitigate emissions.
One of the key challenges faced by the IIT Delhi researchers was to design a suitable catalyst for the energy intensive, corrosive step of Sulphuric acid conversion to Sulphur-dioxide and oxygen. The in-house catalyst meets these criteria and is now patented, and a process based on these is being developed and demonstrated in the Institute.
The project supervisor Prof Sreedevi Upadhyayula, Department of Chemical Engineering said, “There is an imminent need to switch over to renewable energy sources such as water. The thermo-chemical hydrogen cycle for splitting water offers a practical means of generating hydrogen as a fuel and also oxygen as a by-product. Hence, it can be considered favorably for the commercial production of hydrogen on a large scale, in the near future.”
She further said that her team has demonstrated the entire integrated closed loop pilot plant level at IIT Delhi. “We have employed a combined state-of-the-art experimental and theoretical approach to design an efficient and cost-effective heterogeneous catalyst (for the Sulphuric acid decomposition step of S-I cycle for hydrogen production) functional under high temperature, corrosive conditions while also being cost-effective”, she added.
