Invitation to the lecture: Hydrogen - Fuel for Sustainable Energy

The Institute of Materials Chemistry invites you to a lecture by Prof. RNDr. Vladimír Matolín, DrSc. (LEANCAT s.r.o.). The lecture will take place in the framework of the seminar "Advanced Materials" on Monday, April 3, 2023, 12:00 p.m. in lecture room P8.

Moving away from the use of fossil fuels requires the search for new energy carriers that will be necessary to achieve the ambitious goal of carbon neutral energy. Although the share of electricity generation from renewable sources, especially solar and wind, is steadily increasing, a more significant reliance on these sources will come with various challenges, mainly related to the effects of weather and geographic location on their efficiency. The difficulty of regulating the production of electricity from renewable sources requires the search for reversible energy storage and new chemical energy carriers.

So far, the most promising use appears to be hydrogen, and it is clear that hydrogen will be an important part of the energy mix of the future. The falling price of solar and wind energy is leading to the development of 'clean' hydrogen production through the electrolysis of water, allowing surplus energy to be stored. The energy from hydrogen can be converted back into electricity in the hydrogen cycle in fuel cells, which can be both stationary and mobile. Mobile devices are essentially electric hybrid systems where the battery is supplemented by a hydrogen charger. Hydrogen has applications in material handling technology and will be used in electric aviation, trucking and shipping. Hydrogen as an energy carrier has the advantage of fast refuelling and also longer range. The hydrogen future is inextricably linked to the use of batteries, and hybrid systems will be all the more necessary the more power consuming the equipment is.

Professor Matolin has been working on the physics of surfaces and interfaces for more than 40 years. His current research focus is primarily on hydrogen fuel cells. The main focus is on heterogeneous catalysis with the aim of developing cost-effective catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells and water electrolyzers. Other related topics include applied electrochemistry, technical aspects of fuel cells and fuel cell applications.

Published
Link https://www.fch.vut.cz/en/faculty/organizational-structure/ims/news/f142507/d256788