Hanington: A new way to make hydrogen
Researchers at Oregon State University have invented a technique that can use sunlight to produce hydrogen from water – and that could make it cost-effective to use hydrogen as a fuel for semi-trailer trucks.
Remember when the electric vehicle revolution was all a rage a few years ago? It seems it has died down for a while, but it will be back upon us with a vengeance within the next five to ten years.
Yes, there were troubles with the technology; there are always problems with something new. When A.G. Bell first made the telephone back in 1876, he had no actual microphone for the device until Edison invented one in 1882.
The problems for the first EVs were legendary. Car batteries that suddenly burst into flames, the low capacity (range) of some systems, the high cost of battery replacements in others, the ridiculously long time to re-charge your automobile, and, above all, the sparse amount of re-chargers despite the Biden-era promise of building electrical charging stations everywhere.
As gasoline prices slowly creep into the $5 a gallon level as the years roll forward, you will start to see a gradual shift away from fossil fuel cars within the next decade. As it is, in nine years, California has already outlawed any new vehicle using an internal combustion engine burning gasoline to be sold within the state. Very soon, all cars will need to be zero-emission.
You can be sure that Detroit has already planned for this in California because they normally sell two million a year there. Many states will follow.
So, it’s a given – within 10 years, you will only find electric vehicles displayed in an automobile showroom. Shiny new cars that use batteries – that is, hoping they have corrected all of the known shortcomings.
But what about large trucks that haul our freight? What is in store for the tractor trailers that keep the U.S. alive? Will they ever turn to other types of propulsion?
That all depends on the price and availability of diesel fuel. In just this year, the price has spiked to an average of $6.75 a gallon, largely due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East – and it is quite possible there will be more price increases in the next decade. Is there a substitute for diesel on the horizon?
What about a battery-operated big rig? You do see some on the road now, but their ranges are limited. The Tesla Semi is a Class-8 battery-electric that offers between 325 to 500 miles of travel before re-charge. The Kenworth T680E is a zero-emission, battery-electric Class 8 day-cab tractor built for regional haul and delivery applications.
Unfortunately, even if the day came where every truck stop had a battery recharge station, the time to service the massive batteries that these trucks require for the loads they pull would be hours. Might as well stay overnight while waiting.
Is there another fuel on the horizon?
Yes, and that one is hydrogen. It can be used in an internal combustion engine or it can power a bank of highly efficient fuel cells that can drive efficient electric motors. Both fuel cell electricity generation and electric motor propulsion mechanics are proven technologies.
As for hydrogen as a fuel, here are the numbers: Roughly 2.5 pounds of hydrogen is equal in energy to 1 gallon of low-sulfur diesel fuel. If the hydrogen were liquid at say, negative 255 degrees Celsius, it would take up about 4.2 gallons. Because a hydrogen atom only contains a proton and an electron, its density is only 0.59 pounds per gallon as opposed to diesel fuel which is about 7 pounds per gallon.
So, you would need a larger tank if your truck ran on hydrogen - a little more than four times larger to go the same distance your diesel truck runs on now.
What about price? Hydrogen fuel at retail pump stations (such as in California) typically costs between $6 and $12 per pound. Multiply that by 2.5 and you will be paying, at this point, $15 to $30 for the equivalent of a gallon of diesel fuel. Gee, that’s a lot extra to pay.
But, what is going to happen in the next 10 years? Because hydrogen can be extracted from water, no nation can have a monopoly on that fuel. Because ocean water is basically free, you can expect the price to drop on hydrogen in the future.
Helping this along, researchers at Oregon State University have created a new class of materials that can use sunlight to produce hydrogen from water, offering a potentially cheaper way to convert solar energy into fuel. The work was led by Kyriakos Stylianou of the OSU College of Science. His team developed a photocatalyst capable of producing hydrogen quickly and efficiently. Although their progress so far has been on laboratory sized models, the team said that the technique can be scaled up to refinery size operations.
Their findings, published in the September 2026 Journal of the American Chemical Society, could provide researchers with a less expensive method to produce hydrogen gas and at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions because the product of burning hydrogen gas is simply water.
That means, whether the engine is an internal combustion type making torque or a fuel cell making current, the products are devoid of carbon and its byproducts. Environmentally, the process is as clean as can be. Even the climate changers will love it. Using hydrogen as a fuel, if it makes economic sense, will be the most logical choice.
According to the university website, Professor Stylianou explained that his work looked at photocatalysts that absorb light to reach a higher energy level and using this energy to speed up reactions. To do this they examined crystalline, porous materials known as metal organic frameworks, or MOFs. Made up of positively charged metal ions surrounded by organic “linker” molecules, MOFs have nanosized pores and tunable structural properties.
In this study, researchers worked with a MOF, BVR-19, that has a distinctive structural feature: a sulfide-to-sulfide bond that undergoes transient cleavage upon exposure to light, resulting in reactive sulfur ions.
“The organic component does the important work,” Stylianou said. “Instead of relying primarily on the metal atoms, our material uses its sulfur-containing organic building blocks to capture light energy and move electrons where they are needed to produce hydrogen. This represents a different way of thinking about how these materials should be designed.”
No additional expensive metal catalyst is required, he added, potentially simplifying the design of future light-driven hydrogen-production systems. Additionally, BVR-19 is synthesized in aqueous solutions at room temperature and spontaneously, which gives it a strong energy advantage. Producing hydrogen by splitting water through a catalytic process is cleaner than the conventional method of deriving hydrogen from natural gas via a carbon dioxide producing process known as methane-steam reforming, Stylianou said.
Presently most hydrogen is made using this high-cost method and produces hydrogen at the prices mentioned above. If the catalyst technique invented by the Oregon scientists can be expanded, hydrogen just might give diesel fuel a run for its money!
