The Institute of Coal Chemistry and Chemical Materials Science of the Federal Research Center for Coal and Coal Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences is currently studying “green plus” hydrogen. The Director of the Institute, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Zinfer Ismagilov spoke about this during the Open Interview project organized by the Energy and Industry of Russia newspaper.
“With colleagues from the Institute of Catalysis, we are studying not just green hydrogen, but “green plus” hydrogen. The peculiarity of such hydrogen is that by decomposing methane molecules, we obtain not only hydrogen as the main product, but also carbon fibers, carbon nanotubes and carbon materials for composites, that is, useful by-products. Another way to produce hydrogen: methane aromatization reaction is carried out on catalysts, according to this reaction, nine hydrogen molecules and benzene, an additional demanded product, are obtained from six methane molecules. This is what I call “green plus” hydrogen, because we get hydrogen without carbon dioxide emissions, and other useful products are “plus,” he said.
Zinfer stressed that today many countries are focused on the development of hydrogen energy and such research is extremely important.
On February 18, the Russian Ministry of Energy reported that the construction of the hydrogen industry in the country would require $33.4 billion in investments until 2030. It is expected that thanks to the hydrogen industry, it will be possible to employ up to a million people and receive 3.9–5.6 trillion rubles in tax revenues. In addition, the industry could potentially increase Russia’s gross domestic product by 0.25–0.47% annually from 2025 to 2030.
In October 2021, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced that 9 billion rubles would be allocated for the development of Russian technologies in the field of hydrogen energy until 2024.