Electrolytic processes

Abstract

Securing a reliable, economically-viable and environmentally-sound energy supply is one of the great challenges of the twenty-first century. In the Energy Concept, the German government has formulated guidelines for an environmentally-sound, reliable-and affordable energy supply and, for the first time, mapped a road to the age of renewable energy. The Concept is about designing and implementing a long-term overall strategy for the period up to the year 2050 [BMWi, BMU (Energiekonzept für eine umweltschonende, zuverlässige und bezahlbare Energieversorgung. BMWi, BMU, 2010)]. In this scope, hydrogen will play a considerable role as a storage medium and an energy carrier for the transport sector. This chapter concerns the basic physico-chemical principles and the state-of-the-art of the various electrolytic processes for hydrogen production.