A new hydrogen facility that will aid in the development of sustainable energy in South Africa was recently launched at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria.

Launched by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), the facility – located at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria – will be jointly used by Hydrogen South Africa (HySA) and the Batteries Research Centre for energy storage to conduct research to develop novel materials that can meet the challenging hydrogen energy storage requirements.

Speaking at the launch, Mr Imraan Patel, Deputy Director-General for Socio-economic Innovation Partnerships of the DST, said facilities such as these were part of government’s response to the global challenge of energy security.

“Amid the global movement towards developing sustainable energy systems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier, combined with fuel cell technology, has attracted considerable interest from government, international bodies and commercial companies worldwide,” he said.

Hydrogen, the fuel of the future

Fuel cells that use a precious metals group catalyst like platinum use hydrogen, which has little or no polluting emissions as chemical energy is converted to electrical energy.

Hydrogen is touted as a future clean and efficient fuel, but the challenge is developing infrastructure to produce, store and make hydrogen available for these applications, in addition to getting cheaper replacement catalysts.

“The main challenge around hydrogen and fuel cells is storage; therefore the widespread adoption of hydrogen as a fuel depends upon the ability to store hydrogen,” said Dr Dimitri Bessarabov, Director of the DST Hydrogen Infrastructure Centre of Competence (CoC) at the CSIR.

The CSIR-hosted facility will also deliver on a number of national needs, such as the development of cost-competitive solutions for the generation and storage of hydrogen.

“The establishment of the research facility is a milestone that is set to stimulate local beneficiation of indigenous materials, positively impacting economic growth and job creation in accordance with the country’s national development plan,” said Dr Bessarabov.

The hydrogen and energy storage facility is the second project to be hosted by the CSIR as part of the platinum group metals beneficiation initiative. The other is the Titanium CoC.