PNNL

Tom Autrey, a chemist and Laboratory fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), presented at the KOR-US Technology Innovation Forum on Climate Change on December 12, 2022. The forum centered around hydrogen technologies and how the United States and Korea can develop cooperative partnerships to spur innovation.

The forum, supported by agencies in both Korea and the U.S., included policy discussions, research talks, and a roundtable. The common threads between the three sessions were hydrogen, innovation, and partnership. Autrey presented newly funded work exploring hydrogen storage on carbon-boron-nitrogen materials.

“To make hydrogen a viable energy carrier, we need to solve the storage problem,” said Autrey. “We believe that this project can bring us a step closer. We have ambitious goals and I’m excited by new opportunities for collaboration that have already been fostered through the forum. This is a global problem that requires global solutions.”

Autrey presented a high-level overview of the approach, which uses 2-D materials made of carbon, boron, and nitrogen to add and remove hydrogen from molecules. The team is exploring how to tune these materials to alter their ability to interact with hydrogen. They will look at hydrogen activation, diffusion, and transfer on and through these materials. This research aligns with the Department of Energy’s Long Duration Energy Storage Energy Earthshot.

Autrey’s research focuses on materials and approaches to hydrogen storage for small power and on-board fuel cell applications. He is particularly interested in approaches to using hydrogen for long-duration energy storage at multiple scales as well as contributing to the decarbonization of the transportation and industrial sectors. Autrey discusses this perspective on hydrogen energy carriers in greater detail in a new article in the Journal of Energy Chemistry.