GREEN HYDROGEN
INTO HEAT … WITH NO COMBUSTION
Is there a new climate hero in town?
Could be, the result of a discovery that takes a very promising energy solution to a new level.
Hydrogen Energy Release Optimiser – HERO – has been patented by Australian company Star Scientific Limited because it does something remarkably unique.
It turns green hydrogen into heat ... without combustion.
Let’s say that again. Energy from hydrogen, without burning.
Why does that matter?
Think of the implications for a safer way to use a proven renewable. Star Scientific is convinced this will allow hydrogen energy to scale up and out, opening up sectors such as home heating, desalination, and electricity produced by steam-driven turbines, and even hard-to-abate industries like cement, long-haul shipping, steel, and petrochemicals. The company says equipment, including coal-fired burners, can be retrofitted.
It certainly looks like a solution for the developing world, offering affordable and reliable off-grid power to help raise remote communities out of poverty and disease.
Also, hydrogen doesn’t burn completely free of emissions. It releases nitric oxide, which oxidizes in the atmosphere to become nitrogen dioxide. It’s a highly corrosive pollutant that is part of photochemical smog – that brown haze that envelopes cities when VOCs and nitrogen oxides react to sunlight.
In the lab, Star Scientific and founder Andrew Horvath were working to advance muon-catalyzed fusion as an alternative to thermonuclear fusion, to create energy at much lower temperatures, even below room temperature. They stumbled on a catalyst that prompts hydrogen and oxygen gases to combine. Ironically, the reaction produces an impressive amount of heat.
So much heat that, within a few minutes, HERO reaches more than 700 degrees Celsius. And yet, nothing is burning. The only byproduct here is truly just pure water.
The process can be scaled by increasing the surface area of the catalyst and feeding it more hydrogen. If it can be done efficiently and effectively across that variety of applications, particularly high-emission industry, hydrogen could leapfrog over other renewables.
Star Scientific recently announced plans to start building a $100 million plant next year in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The multi-building complex will include continued research and development and mirror a facility being built in Australia to develop stand-alone (off-grid) power systems and GHG-free process-heat systems for industry.
Why New Mexico?
The state is committed to being part of the hydrogen success equation. Gov. Lujan Grisham was at the Sustainable Energy Council’s Asia-Pacific Hydrogen Summit and Exhibition in Sydney in October, where a letter of intent was signed, adding the Australian company to a list of clean energy producers from Singapore, Taiwan, and Germany that are heading for those open arms.
Incentives include tax credits and assistance from a job-creation fund that includes training.
“From the very earliest conversations, the officials in New Mexico outlined their long-term commitment to hydrogen and the benefits of their state for a company such as Star Scientific,” Horvath said in a press release. “We were impressed by their whole-of-government approach to manufacturing, logistics, higher education, and research and their vision for the role that hydrogen will play in their future. We were equally impressed that they had holistically planned important human details such as housing for families that will work at our facility, education incentives for their children, and lifestyle and leisure infrastructure. There is also an infectious ‘can do’ attitude which appeals to we Australians very much.”
