On the move with green hydrogen

Indian railways have recently announced that a hydrogen train, which has recently developed at the Integral Aries factory in Chennai, has successfully completed all tests. This is a pleasant sign of progress for the national green hydrogen mission, which aims to produce at least five million metric tons of green hydrogen per year by 2030, which is a milestone on the way to reach a net zero emissions by 2070.

The train will soon carry passengers between Jind and Sonipat on a 89 km route in Haryana. This project will be based on hydrogen produced by 1 MW polymer electrolyte membrane electrolysis that produces 430 kg of hydrogen every day in Jind. Hydrogen will fill the fuel tanks on the train, where fuel cells will convert the hydrogen into the electric motors of the train.

The principle is quite simple. An electrolysis divides a water molecule into oxygen, protons and electrons. In an electrochemical reaction in the negative electrode (called anode), the molecular oxygen is released and the released electrons are made cathodes through an external circuit. The polymer electrolyte membrane between the cathode and the anode is selective and allows only protons to pass through the cathode where they joined with electrons to form hydrogen molecules. They rise as a gas and collect, compressed and stored. The membrane is typically an excellent insulator like a fluoropolymer, such as Nafion (related to Teflon) and does not pass electrons. The hydrogen and oxygen created are clearly separated.

In the locomotive, as in a hydrogen -running car, the above reaction is reversed in the hydrogen fuel cell. Hydrogen is brought to the anot where each molecule is catalytic and divided into two electrons and two electrons. Protons pass from the membrane to the cathode, where the electrons brought from an external circuit from the oxygen and anode in the air. Water occurs. Electrons flowing from the external circuit constitute the electric current that gives power to the locomotive.

There is a significant difference between chemical reactions in fuel cell and electrolysis. The chemistry between hydrogen and oxygen expects spontaneous, a reaction. However, water does not leave the two elements on its own. Electrical current should be provided to provide energy for this electrochemical reaction.

In order to produce green hydrogen, electrors should come from renewable sources such as solar panels or wind turbines. New renewable energy resources will be needed to achieve the goals of the national green hydrogen mission. In addition, exciting initiatives continue to produce hydrogen in microbial electrolytic cells in which electrochemical active germs grow on anodes and organic substances – agricultural residues, even wastewater – oxidized and spent anotro -produced (oxidizing electrons (oxidizing and spent anotroly produced.Existing scienceskin. 128, p. 133, 2025).

Catalysis steps are platinum, iridium and so on. Requires expensive materials such as. The ongoing research aims to replace them with cheap nickel, cobalt and even iron. In early studies for cheap hydrogen production, the CNR RAO group at the Jawaharlal Nehru Advanced Scientific Research Center designed nickel-nickel hydroxide-graphite electrodes with a comparable water compartment capacity compared to platinum electrodes ((Proc. NATL. Acad. Sci., USAskin. 114, 2017). Combining such developments with sun and germ -guided operations can produce both green and cheap fuel.

The article was written in collaboration with sushil chandani sushilchandani@gmail.com.