Hydrogen is widely touted as a major component of a clean, sustainable energy future, but current means of handling large quantities are dependent on the availability of precious metal catalysts for liquefaction and vessels that can withstand extremely high pressures. Researchers in Germany report development of a salty approach for the efficient storage and release of large volumes of hydrogen. The method stores and releases high purity hydrogen by use of readily available bicarbonate and formate salts in the presence of naturally occurring α-amino acids.

Tests demonstrated that converting bicarbonate and hydrogen into formate — and reversing the process — was most effective with potassium salts, a manganese-based catalyst and lysine. The latter, an amino acid, served as an additional promoter and reacted with carbon dioxide to capture it at reaction temperatures below 200° F.

The reaction system produced hydrogen with an 80% yield and purity of 99% after five storage-release cycles. The researchers from Leibniz-Institut für Katalyse and APEX Energy Teterow GmbH also observed that carbonate salts and glutamic acid can be part of the reusable storage-release system with hydrogen yields up to 94%.

According to the researchers, the technique described in ACS Central Science paves the way for large-scale hydrogen storage in solids.