Akhoury Sudhir Kumar Sinha

By Akhoury Sudhir Kumar Sinha and Umaprasana Ojha

Nanocatalysts for sustainable water electrolysis is strongly desirable to promote the commercialization of H2 as the alternate clean energy source for the future. The goal is cheaper hydrogen production from sea and low grade water by minimizing the energy consumption and using low cost cell components & non-noble metal catalysts. The conductivity of metal nitrides and their ability to carry out Hydrogen Evolution Reaction and Oxygen Evolution Reaction at relatively low overpotential render these one of the frontline candidates to be potentially utilized as the catalyst for low cost H2 production via electrolysis. In this chapter, the potential of metal nitride catalyst towards fulfilling the above objective is discussed. The synthesis of various metal nitride catalysts, their efficiency towards electrode half reactions and the effectiveness of these class of nanocatalyst for electrolysis of sea water is elaborated. A review of recent literature with special reference to the catalyst systems based on non-noble metals will be provided to assess the likelihood of these nanocatalyst to serve as a commercial grade electrode material for sea water electrolysis.

Part of the book: Electrocatalysis and Electrocatalysts for a Cleaner Environment

By Akhoury Sudhir Kumar Sinha, Umaprasana Ojha, Marriyappan Sivagnanam Balathanigaimani and Sanjay Kar

The use of adsorbed natural gas (ANG) as a transportation fuel is a relatively cleaner alternative compared to that of gasoline and is important from the perspective of environmental safety. However, unlike gasoline and diesel, natural gas requires compression, liquefaction, and adsorption techniques for its storage, as it has a very low volumetric energy density. Among all storage techniques, adsorption-based natural gas (ANG) storage is considered as more economical and relatively safe technology due to its mild temperature and pressure conditions for the storage. This chapter will summarize the recent advances in the area of ANG with reference to various synthetic storage materials recently developed for the purpose and their efficiency towards storage and deliverability of natural gas. Particular emphasis will be given to adsorbents based on porous carbon materials, metal organic frameworks, and covalent organic frameworks for the said application. The synthetic procedure for the above adsorbents, followed by their efficiency to store and deliver natural gas, will be discussed. Finally, in the conclusion, the future scope of the technology will be summarized.

Part of the book: Natural Gas

By Akhoury Sudhir Kumar Sinha, Sanjay Kumar Kar, Umaprasana Ojha and Marriyappan Sivagnanam Balathanigaimani

India strives for increasing the share of natural gas to 15% by 2030 from 6.5% at present. This chapter highlights recent developments to achieve the targets set by the government. Further, we discuss regulatory and policy interventions to facilitate the growth of the natural gas market in the country. We analyze the opportunities and challenges to the smooth transition of the green economy with the greater role of natural gas. We present the infrastructure developments, including liquefied natural gas (LNG) importing terminals, cross-country natural gas pipelines network, LNG tankers, refueling stations, and city gas distribution (CGD) network. Finally, we present a futuristic perspective of natural gas in the energy transition. We conclude that India being a natural gas deficient country, import dependency would continue to grow. However, this would not deter the growth of natural gas in the economy. Proactive measures by the government and its agencies will boost investment to create the desired infrastructure for achieving higher natural gas penetration in India.

Part of the book: Natural Gas

By Akhoury Sudhir Kumar Sinha, Umaprasana Ojha, Zahoor Alam and Ajay Awdheshprasad Tripathi

Hydrogen has been intensively explored recently as an energy carrier to meet the growing demand for green energy across the globe. One of the most difficult and significant subjects in hydrogen energy technology is efficiently creating hydrogen from water by utilizing renewable resources such as solar light. Solar-based hydrogen production comprises several routes, namely, photocatalytic, photoelectrocatalytic, and photobiological decomposition. An efficient photocatalyst is desired to accomplish the above objective by utilizing the first two routes with a minimal rate of recombination of photo-generated charge carriers. In this chapter, strategies for preventing recombination of charge carriers in photocatalysts and the development of photocatalysts have been focused on, and its utilization in the procedure for the production of hydrogen via photocatalytic and photoelectrocatalytic processes is described.

Part of the book: Clean Energy Technologies

By Amit Kumar Verma, Prerna Tripathi, Akhoury Sudhir Kumar Sinha and Shikha Singh

Conservation of the entire spectrum of the sun is crucial to raising the efficiency of solar splitting cells or any photochemical conversion. With the aid of upconversion nanomaterials, it could potentially be achievable. In general, solar splitting technologies are associated with numerous losses. Remarkably, inadequate utilization of the light spectrum is the primary cause of losses in photophysical processes. This is usually caused by a particular band gap in semiconductor materials, where higher-energy photons dissipate as energy and lower-energy photons, or sub-bandgap photons, are unable to be absorbed. The process of absorbing two or more photons and then emitting one photon with more energy than the sum of the individual energies of the previously absorbed ones is known as upconversion. Introducing an appropriate upconverter can significantly improve the photoconversion process’s efficiency. Efforts have been made in the past few years to enhance the efficiency, broad-range sensitivity, and activity of semiconductors by integrating upconversion systems. This chapter provides a detailed discussion of the upconversion strategies that have been used thus far to increase the efficiency of solar splitting cells. It will undoubtedly assist the researchers in advancing in this area.

Part of the book: Revolutionizing Energy Conversion - Photoelectrochemical Technologies and Their Role in Sustainability [Working title]