Engineers hard at work solving 'seemingly impossible problem' with hydrogen: 'Akin to finding a needle in a multi-dimensional haystack'

Researchers at Texas A&M are exploring new technology including high-performing alloys to make efficient and greener hydrogen-powered turbines the wave of the future, as the university revealed in a post by Tech Xplore.

According to the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E), approximately 35% of U.S. electricity production comes from natural gas turbines. Since burning this dirty fuel is neither environmentally friendly nor sustainable (it is considered cleaner than other fuels but still problematic), things will need to change. 

Switching to hydrogen is a promising solution, but since it needs to burn at higher temperatures and creates a wet environment within the turbines, per the researchers, more resistant alloys are key to a greener future. 

This is why ARPA-E funding has been directed toward investigating a new class of materials for turbines.

"The United States has set an ambitious goal to decarbonize energy by 2035," said Dr. Don Lipkin, professor in the materials science and engineering department and principal investigator on the grant, per the report.

"We need materials solutions for advanced gas turbines that are both cleaner and more efficient; that is, the turbines can work at much hotter temperatures and use hydrogen gas instead of natural gas so as not to produce carbon dioxide."

The Tech Xplore post explained that coal-powered turbines started to be transitioned to natural gas in the 1930s to improve efficiency and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. We're now on the precipice of the next stage in power generation, with hydrogen playing a key role. 

"Very efficient turbines need to operate at much higher temperatures, around 3,000 Fahrenheit or more, and we need materials solutions for advanced turbines that can operate in these hotter regimes," said Lipkin.

"The other problem is that when you burn hydrogen in air, you make more steam than when burning natural gas. Most turbine materials will show signs of accelerated distress when exposed to high temperatures and very wet environments."

Turbines are generally composed of nickel and cobalt, as the report explained, but since nickel-based superalloys begin to melt at 2,400 degrees, researchers are exploring a new class of materials called refractory high entropy alloys.

"To solve this seemingly impossible problem, we make use of advanced alloy design tools pioneered in our groups," said Dr. Raymundo Arróyave, co-principal investigator in the project, per the report. "The discovery of new alloys capable of withstanding these extreme environments is akin to finding a needle in a multi-dimensional haystack."

Creating new hydrogen-powered turbines to create electricity without the side effect of warming the atmosphere will rely on a robust green hydrogen supply, which is an additional challenge currently being addressed. 

Green hydrogen fuel can also be used to power hybrid vehicles and public transportation, theoretically with only heat and water vapor as byproducts. These are all part of the plan for hitting our net-zero goals by 2050. For now, the researchers are improving on gas.

"One way we can meet our carbon reduction goals in the energy sector is to keep our overall energy generation infrastructure intact but switch to burning hydrogen as the fuel, as opposed to natural gas," as Lipkin shared in the report. 

"No one solution is going to work for all of the energy infrastructure in the U.S.; it's going to be a mix of renewables and non-renewables.

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