Muhammad Danyal Imam
Hydrogen is an essential fuel in a future of secure and clean energy. It can fuel vehicles, ships and aircrafts, heat homes and offices, and produce electricity.
As an energy carrier, it diversifies energy sources, reducing dependence on hydrocarbon-based fuels.
The first cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells hit the market in 2015, promising cleaner air and a healthier planet. However, this clean source of energy is yet to be produced and utilised globally in commercial quantities.
Muhammad Danyal Imam hopes to change that pace and accelerate the world’s access to a cleaner and safer energy source. He recently clinched third place in the Qatar University National 3MT Competition for a Texas A&M University Qatar-funded research aimed at developing a sustainable technique to produce hydrogen from water. He believes the study will revolutionise hydrogen production, usage and storage.
“I am looking for a way to produce hydrogen from water,” Danyal told The Peninsula. “There is an abundance of water in our planet and we can extract hydrogen from it using solar energy. My aim is to develop a fully renewable energy-based technique that can produce hydrogen we can use as fuel.”
Several techniques for extracting hydrogen exist today, but they have proven too costly. The current water-splitting methods rely on highly purified water, which is a precious resource and costly to produce. Home to 15 out of the 20 most water-scarce countries, the Middle East is the world’s most water-scarce region. Freshwater in the region is, therefore, a scarce resource.
“We are trying to develop a technique that can be used not only with freshwater, but with seawater as well,” Danyal said. “About 75 percent of the planet is water. Although freshwater is scarce, we can offset its production by using hydrogen.”
The researcher stated that the faster hydrogen is commercially developed as fuel, producing freshwater from seawater will become cheaper and more environmentally friendly with hydrogen as the primary energy source.
While hydrogen can dramatically help create a cleaner and greener environment, its explosive property makes it difficult to store and transport, posing a challenge to its potential extensive commercial use.
“There are techniques (of extracting hydrogen), but they are still not good enough for commercial application. I am working on making new materials that can achieve better production rate, more stability and hopefully build on this work to come up with a catalyst that can achieve high production rates and make the process economically feasible,” Danyal said.
“Making hydrogen as a fuel for the future is going to take a long time, so we want to find a solution to one of the problems.”
Hydrogen is an appealing fuel option because it does not emit carbon dioxide. Danyal stressed that producing fossil fuels isn’t the issue but the carbon it generates during use, which is a greenhouse gas.
“Just using fossil fuels will generate carbon emissions, and if we want to continue with those, we have to create a means that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” he noted.
“If we have a different power source, we won’t have any carbon emissions and would not need to develop techniques to extract these emissions from the atmosphere,” Danyal added.
For Qatar, a sustainable model of hydrogen production developed in the country would be a significant milestone as the government implements its climate-friendly policies.
In October, the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdul Aziz Al Thani, unveiled the Qatar National Environment and Climate Change Strategy. One of the main points of the strategy is to reduce GHG emissions by 25 percent by 2030, enhance ambient air quality standards and update limit values by 2024. The public transportation system is set to be 25 percent electric by 2022 and 100 percent by 2030.
“Qatar has a national vision to cut carbon emissions, with several initiatives already being implemented. I think the country is doing an amazing job with the sustainability strategy,” Danyal added.
