From water to chemicals: vision and opportunities of a sustainable hydrogen society

doi:10.1515/ci-2024-0320

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From water to chemicals: vision and opportunities of a sustainable hydrogen society

Published/Copyright: July 15, 2024

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From the journal Chemistry International Volume 46 Issue 3

A special issue of PAC dedicated to the 5^th edition of Avogadro Colloquia “From water to chemicals: vision and opportunities of a sustainable hydrogen society” was released as Volume 96, Issue 4, April 2024.

Preface by Lidia Armelao, Elio Giamello, Gaetano Guerra, and Maria Chiara Carrozza; https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2024-0229.

The Avogadro Colloquia conference represents a forum of discussion on challenging and urgent topics relating to chemical sciences, the environment, and the needs of society. It is jointly organized periodically by the National Research Council (CNR), Department of Chemical Sciences and Materials Technologies and the Italian Chemical Society. The 5^th edition was one of the first important events for the celebrations of CNR centenary and was held at the CNR headquarters in Rome on 15-16December 2022. This edition of the Colloquia was focused on the technologies for hydrogen production and use in the so-called “green transition” towards a society with reduced CO₂ emissions. Such technologies fit well the objectives suggested by the United Nations and by Mission EU2030 for the mitigation of the climate change.

Greeting addresses were given by the IUPAC president Javier García Martínez, the elected president of the European Chemical Society (EuChemS) Angela Agostiano, the CNR president Maria Chiara Carrozza, the director of Dipartimento Scienze Chimiche e tecnologie dei Materiali DSCTM CNR Lidia Armelao, and the president of Società Chimica Italiana (SCI) Gaetano Guerra. All the representatives of the national and international chemical societies underlined the key role of chemical sciences and innovative materials in the green transition.

The conference was organized in four thematic sessions:

production and uses of green hydrogen, in which the topics relating to water electrolysis processes and the materials used in these processes and in fuel cells were discussed;
transport and storage, both through chemical approaches and physical methods and the presentation of case studies;
production of chemicals with high added value and with green methods, such as the so-called “e-fuels”; and finally
decarbonization policies, analyzing both the political-regulatory aspects of the issue and the strategic ones.

Finally, particular attention was paid to the most difficult industrial sectors to decarbonize, such as steel, ceramics, glass and cement, which constitute a first, crucial challenge ground for the use of green and blue hydrogen.

The special issue collects some of the reports presented at the conference, and includes:

“H₂ in the energy transition” by Vito Di Noto et al. University of Padova,
“Rethinking chemical production with green hydrogen” by Gabriele Centi et al. University of Messina,
“Hydrogen storage and handling with hydrides” by Marcello Baricco et al. University of Torino,
“Hydrogen as an energy carrier: constraints and opportunities” by Nicola Armaroli et al. National Research Council - Bologna,
“In-situ and operando Grazing Incidence XAS: a novel set-up and its application to model Pd electrodes for alcohols oxidation” by Alessandro Lavacchi et al. National Research Council – Firenze,
“Watching atoms at work during reactions” by Stefano Agnoli et al. University of Padova,
“Hydrogen production and conversion to chemicals: a zero-carbon puzzle?” by Mario Marchionna SAIPEM – Milano,
“Shaping the future of green hydrogen: De Nora’s electrochemical technologies for fueling the energy transition” by Michele Perego et al. De Nora Industries – Milano,
“Perovskite: a key structure for a sustainable hydrogen economy” by Alessandra Sanson National Research Council – Faenza,
“Advanced polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolysis for power to gas applications” by Antonino Salvatore Aricò et al. National Research Council – Messina.

The proceedings in Italian are published in a dedicated issue of “La Chimica & l’Industria” edited by the Italian Chemical Society (issue 5/2023) <https://www.soc.chim.it/it/riviste/chimica_industria/catalogo>.

https:// www.degruyter.com/journal/key/pac/96/4/html

Lectures and session discussions of the Avogadro Colloquia took place in the iconic Marconi Hall of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Piazzale Aldo Moro, in Roma.

Published Online: 2024-07-15

Published in Print: 2024-07-01

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