High-Efficiency Radiolysis: Nuclear Hydrogen
Please Contact Us below for more information.
[ Please check download folder after clicking above ]
We are solving problems of power scarcity, consistency, and energy security by developing a new “kinder & gentler” form of nuclear power with the potential of being safer and easier to deploy than fission, fusion or nuclear batteries. It also has the benefit of producing hydrogen because we are splitting water using atomic energy rather than boiling it.
Traditionally the term nuclear hydrogen has been associated with the use of either excess heat energy created at nuclear power plants (NPP) to facilitate the production of hydrogen by various methods (purple & red hydrogen on the color spectrum), or the use of electricity produced at NPP to power traditional electrolysis (pink hydrogen).
Herl Tech, on the other hand, is developing an entirely new method of producing hydrogen, based not on excess heat or electricity from NPP, but on the actual interaction of ionizing radiation with water, also called radiolysis. As a matter of fact, all NPP already produce small amounts of hydrogen this way, but they do it very inefficiently and the hydrogen they produce is considered a nuisance byproduct. However, over the last couple of decades researchers have identified processes that actually amplify hydrogen generation by radiolysis. Herl tech is leveraging these developments, in addition to contributing our own revolutionary designs and discoveries, to develop a new, patent pending method of amplifying hydrogen production to commercially viable levels using a method we call High-Efficiency Radiolysis, or HERL™ Technology. No fission or fusion required!
What is Nuclear Hydrogen?
How will Herl Technologies “Solve” the Challenges of Hydrogen Transportation & Storage?
Technical challenges associated with hydrogen transportation and storage remain significant hurdles in achieving a successful hydrogen economy. Herl Tech’s “solution” is to make them, for the most part, no longer relevant.
What?!?!
To understand this explanation, we need to understand why the problem of hydrogen transportation and storage, on a large scale, exist in the first place. While there will likely always be the need for ‘last mile’ transportation, and storage needs associated with weight- or size-sensitive applications, such as mobility, in large part the challenges of hydrogen transportation and storage stem from and are exacerbated by the Net Negative power problem associated with current methods of hydrogen production.
As is well understood in the energy industry, it takes more power to produce a kg of hydrogen than is recovered from it, when utilized. This is the Net Negative power problem (among other names). Examples of 50kWh to produce 1kg compared to 40kWh recovered from 1kg, are sometimes given. One of the many distortions this causes in the hydrogen industry is, due to the economic benefits of scale, there is substantial motivation to make hydrogen production systems as large as possible, perhaps hundreds or thousands of times more production capacity than is needed locally in the region surrounding the production plant. This leads to the need to store and transport the hydrogen to where it is needed, even thousands of kilometers away.
Now, imagine it took 20kWh of power to produce 1kg of hydrogen, compared to the current 50kWh, but the same 40kWh is recovered. This is Net Positive in power generation, which is the case with other energy sources, such as oil or solar or wind. Also, image there were no specific benefit to scale, in fact the opposite could be the case (smaller is better). Imagine further that hydrogen production could be co-located with the industrial complex or community it is supplying. Finally, imagine, due to being Net Positive in power generation, the majority of hydrogen being produced with this new method is directly coupled to fuel cells or hydrogen ICE/generators and immediately converted to electricity. There are far more solutions available for electricity transport and storage than hydrogen transport and storage.
Under these conditions, the challenges of transport and storage of hydrogen are largely resolved. Undoubtedly other challenges arise with this new technology, once it is mature, and they certainly exist in its current state, but Herl Technologies proposes that the development of High-Efficiency Radiolysis (HERL) to produce Nuclear Hydrogen, not only serves to resolve many challenges associated with Nuclear Power, but has the potential of allowing the Hydrogen Economy to achieve is long-sought-for position at the pinnacle of Zero Carbon energy.
