The “Eureka moment” as Australian researchers make hydrogen storage breakthrough
Australian researchers have found a new way to safely separate, store and transport large amounts of gas that could be the missing piece of the puzzle for renewable hydrogen. The number of renewable hydrogens is huge in Australia’s net zero emissions plan – particularly in the hard-to-decarbonise industrial and heavy transport sectors. But storing and transporting large amounts of gas for practical applications remains a major challenge. A team from Deakin University’s Institute for Frontier Materials (IFM) in Melbourne says it has found a new mechanochemical way to separate and store gases, which is safe, uses less energy than traditional methods and produces no waste. The team said the breakthrough, detailed in the journal Materials Today, was a departure from accepted wisdom on gas separation and storage and had to be repeated 20 to 30 times before it could be trusted. “We were very surprised to see this happen, but every time we kept getting the exact same results, it was a eur