Solid-State Hydrogen Storage for a Decarbonized Society

Abstract

Humanity is confronted with one of the most significant challenges in its history. The excessive use of fossil fuel energy sources is causing extreme climate change, which threatens our way of life and poses huge social and technological problems. It is imperative to look for alternate energy sources that can replace environmentally destructive fossil fuels. In this scenario, hydrogen is seen as a potential energy vector capable of enabling the better and synergic exploitation of renewable energy sources. A brief review of the use of hydrogen as a tool for decarbonizing our society is given in this work. Special emphasis is placed on the possibility of storing hydrogen in solid-state form (in hydride species), on the potential fields of application of solid-state hydrogen storage, and on the technological challenges solid-state hydrogen storage faces. A potential approach to reduce the carbon footprint of hydrogen storage materials is presented in the concluding section of this paper.