Overview on recent developments on hydrogen energy: Production, catalysis, and sustainability

Abstract Developing future energy systems will be based on low-carbon and emission-free sustainable energy sources. Hydrogen (H2) and fuel cells (FCs) simultaneously play a significant role in solving problems related to climate change and energy usage. Hydrogen is a clean energy vector and among the main solutions for the decarbonization strategy. The hydrogen economy provides solutions to diminish climate change, to improve urban air quality, and to increase energy resources scarcity. Over the last decade, the H2 economy has received profound attention, but it faces several challenges and has bottlenecks that must be overcome before being fully commercialized and creating true hydrogen societies. This chapter reports various key drivers and barriers in the deployment of hydrogen as an energy vector used in fuel cells. Research and innovation in hydrogen production methods as well as in its storage, distribution, and the end use are also discussed. We summarize briefly the state of the art and the challenges in fostering the use of hydrogen as an energy vector and highlight how catalysis plays a vital role in conjunction with the hydrogen production and fuel cell technologies.