Collaboration with the University of California, Santa Barbara has made important progress in reducing the cost of hydrogen production with innovative ThermoLoop™ technology.
SANTA CLARITA, Calif., Aug. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NewHydrogen, Inc. (OTCMKTS:NEWH) provided an update on its groundbreaking ThermoLoop™ technology, which uses water and heat rather than electricity to produce the world's cheapest green hydrogen. The company shared progress on its collaboration with the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in the development of ThermoLoopTM.
The common method for producing green hydrogen is to split water into oxygen and hydrogen in an electrolyzer using green electricity generated by solar or wind, but this is expensive, accounting for around 73% of the total production cost.
“We are collaborating with a world-class research team at UC Santa Barbara to develop ThermoLoopTM, a new low-cost thermochemical process that uses cheap heat instead of expensive electricity to split water,” said Steve Hill, CEO of NewHydrogen. “Existing thermochemical approaches require very high temperatures (around 2,000°C) or inefficient multi-step processes. Our goal with ThermoLoopTM is to achieve an efficient chemical looping redox process that operates below 1000°C.”
Since the project began in August 2023, the UCSB team has made significant progress, including:
Design and build a reactor test stand that successfully produces hydrogen and oxygen from water using a thermochemical reaction cycle, allowing performance testing of synthesized materials under a range of conditions. Conduct thermodynamic screening to identify and select promising new candidate materials and reaction conditions, and conduct studies to understand the hydrogen and oxygen production mechanisms and their impact on material structure. Validate the fundamental science behind ThermoLoop™ by synthesizing and testing materials cited in key publications and testing to demonstrate repeated cycles of hydrogen and oxygen production, disproving certain claims in previous research publications. Identify key co-reactants that provide the driving force for splitting water below 1000°C and reducing the temperature difference between the hydrogen and oxygen production steps.
Going forward, the team plans to:
Explore new material systems for thermochemical cycles to increase hydrogen production efficiency while minimizing the production temperature difference between hydrogen and oxygen. Upgrade experimental test stands to increase material screening throughput and broaden the search scope for optimal candidates. Develop conceptual process models for techno-economic analysis (TEA) of water splitting processes, incorporating material cost data and reaction kinetics to estimate large-scale hydrogen production costs. Select material configurations that optimize performance, reduce energy inputs, and lower operating temperatures, significantly reducing green hydrogen production costs.
“We are very pleased with the UCSB team's progress and methodical approach in developing a cost-effective thermochemical process to produce green hydrogen. Their efforts will be crucial in achieving our goal of providing the cheapest green hydrogen in the world,” Hill concluded.
About NewHydrogen, Inc.
NewHydrogen is developing ThermoLoop™, a breakthrough technology that uses water and heat instead of electricity to produce the world's lowest cost green hydrogen. Hydrogen is the cleanest and most abundant element in the universe, and we cannot live without it. Hydrogen is a key feedstock for making the fertilizer needed to grow food around the world. It's also used in transportation, oil refining, and the manufacture of steel, glass, pharmaceuticals, and more. Nearly all of today's hydrogen is made from hydrocarbons like coal, oil, and natural gas, which are polluting and limited resources. Water, on the other hand, is an infinite and renewable resource worldwide.
Currently, the most common way to produce green hydrogen is to split water into oxygen and hydrogen in an electrolyzer using green electricity generated by solar or wind. However, green electricity is and will remain very expensive; currently it accounts for 73% of the cost of green hydrogen. By using heat directly, we can skip the expensive process of making electricity and radically lower the cost of green hydrogen. Cheap heat can come from concentrated solar, geothermal, nuclear reactors and industrial waste heat and can be used in our innovative, low-cost thermochemical water splitting process. Working with a world-class research team at the University of California, Santa Barbara, our goal is to contribute to the advent of the green hydrogen economy, which Goldman Sachs estimates to have a future market value of $12 trillion.
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