There is an irony in creating hydrogen fuel.
Hydrogen is plentiful, but always as part of another compound. It must be separated from such chemical siblings as water and methane if you want it to properly store and carry clean energy. A method called methane steam reforming — in which methane reacts with steam under pressure with a metal catalyst such as nickel to produce hydrogen — is the predominant industrial method.
Doing it that way, though, produces the pollutant carbon dioxide, said Virginia Tech chemical engineering professor Sheima Khatib. Hydrogen has a wide range of uses, including electricity generation, vehicle power and rocket fuel, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It’s clean, but making it can be dirty.
“The problem is that … you’re wanting to produce hydrogen, which is a clean energy carrier, but in producing it, you’re also emitting CO2, which is going against your primary goal,” Khatib said.
Multiple projects afoot aim to eliminate the pollution involved. One of them, spurred by a $1.3 million grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission, aims to convert methane to clean hydrogen.
Khatib is co-leading a team that involves investigators from Virginia Tech and Kentucky-based Asbury College, along with an industry partner, Cincinnati’s Shepherd Chemical Co.
The project will feature a side quest. If all goes to plan, the process will produce a solidified carbon that can be turned into nanofibers or nanotubes, Khatib said. Those tiny products are useful in areas including medicine and energy.
“You can then sell that, and that just makes the whole process more economically viable,” she said.
Catalyzing research
A basic chemistry book will tell you that chemical reactions happen because of a catalyst — a substance that sparks the reaction.
Khatib said her team is looking at various catalysts, how they work, how the team can improve them and how to design a process that works in a small reactor to separate hydrogen from methane, without polluting. The process is called catalytic methane decomposition, and in theory, it beats steam reforming and other industrial hydrogen-creation methods.
There’s one major problem: Unlike in most chemical reactions, catalytic methane decomposition deposits carbon on the catalyst, quickly killing its ability to produce hydrogen.
Khatib and her colleagues want to address that problem. First, they’ll design and test a catalyst. She declined to go into details about the catalyst, only saying that she’s looking at mixed metal oxides, in hopes of finding one to patent.
At Asbury College, Khatib’s counterpart is Wilson Shafer, a chemistry professor. Shafer is an expert in reactor engineering who will lead a team figuring out how to run the process without the solid carbon deposits covering the catalysts and blocking their further utility, Khatib said.
The longer it runs, the more hydrogen it can produce. That aspect interests Cincinnati’s Shepherd Chemical Co., the industrial partner. Scientists there have the tools and skills to run techno-economic analyses and deliver feedback based on their calculations, Khatib said.
Shepherd’s research and development leader, Robert Hart, will look to answer several questions: Is the process feasible? What tweaks should the university-based researchers make to improve the process?
“Then we would use that information to redesign our catalysts to get to that target … and then how we can design the process in a pilot-scale reactor,” Khatib said.
The project’s goal is to reach the point where the technology is ready for partnerships with industries that can use hydrogen, she said. Another team member on the Virginia Tech campus will look to develop those partnerships in Appalachia. Zachary Brown, associate director of business development at LINK: Center for Advancing Partnerships, which connects the university to industries, is on point for that end of the grant.
The steel industry is beginning to use hydrogen to make its product emissions-free. The carbon products that emerge in place of pollution are useful in other construction materials. And very early research indicates that carbon products could help in rehabilitating contaminated soil, which could expand what is now a small market for commercial solid carbon, Khatib said.
“I think that can be very attractive,” she said. “To make this process commercial, it makes sense if you’re not just selling the hydrogen but also the carbon. It would make this process more viable.”
Teaching the science
The grant also includes a K-12 education component. Amy Price Azono, director of the Center for Rural Education at Virginia Tech, will head up that component.
In late summer, the center will host a contingent of STEM, chemistry, agriculture and career and technical teachers from Southwest Virginia. Azano and scientists involved with the project will work with them to help the teachers strengthen students’ understanding of energy sources and consumption.
While Khatib and her team look at the project from a molecular level, Azano said she is zooming out to look at the region’s rural schools. They can be hard to staff, with teachers covering areas that aren’t necessarily their specialties, said Azano, a professor of rural education at the university.
Experts at Virginia Tech can help them understand the science behind this project, she said.
The teachers are experts on their own communities, and Azano said she’ll learn from them, as well. Fitting this science into a middle- or high-school day that is focused on standardized learning will be part of the Center for Rural Education’s own kind of experiment.
“Sometimes when we talk about place, or we have this shiny idea that we want to do, it’s like it can sometimes feel like one more thing that a teacher has to do,” she said. “So part of my goal will be to make sure that we’re supporting the work — the important and good work — that is already underway in those rural classrooms, and how we can do it in a way that might be even more relevant to the lives of young people who are learning.”
After teachers head back home, Azano will stay in touch with them, learning how they have incorporated the new stuff into their routines. She hopes to have them back for further exploration. Ultimately, it’s a way for students to understand a topic within the context of their communities, she said.
“So when we think about something like energy, what will this mean to farmers in the community? What might this mean to small business owners? What might this mean for industry partners who were thinking of building something in the community? Really coming at it from all angles and really teaching kids those tools around that,” Azano said.
“So it’ll be exciting to see what cases the teachers bring, and … they’ll fill in the blanks for that, and then we’ll give them time and resources to put that together.”
Teachers and school districts interested in the program can visit rural.vt.edu or email rural@vt.edu.
Correction 10:15 a.m. May 14: Sheima Khatib is a chemical engineering professor at Virginia Tech. Her title was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.