Department of Science and Technology

Department of Science
and Technology
India Country Status Report
on
Hydrogen and Fuel Cells
Department of Science and Technology

New Delhi
September 2020
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Hydrogen Production 8
Hydrogen Storage 21
Hydrogen Transport 33
Utilization – Fuel Cell 36
Utilization- Others 49
Way Forward 63
References 67
Dr. Sanjay Bajpai
Head
Technology Mission Division (EW)
Department of Science & Technology (DST)
New Delhi
Dr. Sanjay Bajpai graduated in mechanical engineering from Malaviya National Institute of
Technology, Jaipur and pursued masters in Business Administration from University of
Rajasthan, Ajmer. He was awarded doctorate by Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi for his
research work on ‘Alternative Fuels for Internal Combustion Engines’. He has managed and
shaped several national, bilateral and multilateral research, development and innovation
programs. He specializes in management of technology development and socio- economic
programs requiring application of S&T. He is currently heading Technology Mission Division
of Department of Science and Technology responsible for leading research, development and
innovation activities in Water and Clean Energy domain. He has represented India in
Editorial Members
numerous bilateral and multilateral event and has articulated national and international
endeavours in these domains.
Dr. Ranjith Krishna Pai

Scientist E / Director
Technology Mission Division
Department of Science & Technology (DST)
New Delhi
Dr. Ranjith Krishna Pai received the Ph.D. degree in Natural Sciences, from Dr. Othmar
Marti’s Group, Ulm University, Germany, in 2005. He is Scientist E & Director at Technology
Mission Division, Ministry of Science and Technology, Department of Science and Technology
(DST), Government of India, New Delhi, India. From 2006 to 2007, he was a Postdoctoral
Researcher at University of Chile, Santiago, working on Genetic engineering of a novel
protein-nanoparticle hybrid system with great potential for bio sensing applications. 2007 to
2009, he spent two years as a Post-Doctoral Scientist at Stockholm University, Stockholm,
Sweden. From 2009 to 2011, he was a Research Scientist at CFN, Brookhaven National
Laboratory, New York, USA. After spending 2 years 5 months at BNL, New York, USA, he spent
another 2 years 4 months (2011-2013) as a Research Scientist at INL - International Iberian
Nanotechnology Laboratory, Braga, Portugal. From 2013 to 2015, he was an Associate Professor
and Group leader at Nanostructured Hybrid Functional Materials & Devices, Jain University,
Bangalore, India. From 2015 to 2019, he was a Scientist D & Deputy Secretary at Technology
Mission Division, Ministry of Science and Technology, Department of Science and Technology
(DST), Government of India, New Delhi, India. He published several high impact scientific
papers, and author of three book chapters. 15 invited lectures at international conferences.
Previously served as an Associate Editor of a Journal “Nano tools & Nano machines” and a
Guest Editor of International Journal of Polymer Science. His research interest includes
energy conversion technologies, including low cost photovoltaic (Organic, and hybrid solar
cells) and electrical energy storage (batteries and super capacitors), synthesis of
semiconducting polymers and polymer nanostructures and their application to organic
transistors, solar cells, light emitting diodes and other photonic applications, synthesis,
characterizations and applications of carbon and inorganic nanotubes, Modeling of the
electronic properties of nanostructured semiconductors.
Prof. Pratibha Sharma
Department of Energy Science and
Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Mumbai
Prof. Pratibha Sharma is Professor in the Department of Energy Science and Engineering at
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. She is recipient of Gold medal at her master’s level
and received “Best thesis award” and gold medal for here PhD work in DAE-SS
PS, at BARC by Department of Atomic Energy in DAE Solid State Physics Symposium. Her
research interests include hydrogen storage materials and systems, hydrogen utilization, low
cost earth abundant materials for photovoltaic applications and materials for bio medical
applications. She has worked on various types of hydrides for solid state hydrogen storage,
their modifications, catalysis, support and tailoring the reactions mechanisms. She has been
Editorial Members
working on simulation, design and development of hydrogen storage reactors for various
applications. She is currently on the editorial board of International Journals, reviewer for
several renowned International Journals, serving on the organizing and advisory committees
of large number of conferences. She has delivered several invited talks and keynote address in
different International conferences. She has supervised 13 PhD students, 30 M.Tech and M.Sc.
students. She has more than 65 International journal publications and four patents to her
credit. She has been awarded with the “Outstanding Service Award” by the International
Association of Hydrogen Energy, for her altruistic contribution towards world hydrogen
economy. Prof. Sharma is leading several multi-institutional R&D projects on Hydrogen
systems development and integration for different applications. These projects have several
IITs and industries as partner which are working together for hydrogen based solutions.
Dr. N. Rajalakshmi
Senior Scientist and Team Leader
Centre for Fuel Cell Technology, ARCI
IIT Madras Research Park, Chennai, India
After obtaining Ph.D in Physics from IIT, Madras, she worked as post doctoral fellow in TH
Darmstadt, Germany and University of Geneva, Switzerland for about 8 years. She has worked
on various aspects of Hydrogen economy like production, storage and utilization. She has gained
vast experience in Fuel cell technology both in Material aspects and Engineering challenges from
SPIC Science foundation and Center for Fuel cell Technology for the past 20 years. She was a
visiting scientist of Korea Research Institute of Chemical technology, South Korea under the
Brain pool program. Presently she is a team leader at CFCT, unit of ARCI, DST at Chennai. She
has received the Technology award from Spic Science Foundation for making large area
electrodes, Bharat Vikas Award from Institute of self Reliance for clean energy generation, Nature
publishing award etc.,
She has chaired many sessions and given invited talks in various International conferences on
Fuel cell science, Engineering technology, Gordon Research Conference on Fuel cells, Society of
Automobile Engineers etc., in India and Abroad. She is a reviewer for many journals related to
Hydrogen and / Fuel cells. Member of Working group, Hydrogen utilization, IEEJ, Japan,
American chemical society, International Association of Hydrogen energy, Materials Research
society of India, Electrochemical society, and Indian society of Fuel cell Technologists. She has
about 170 publications in various International Journals, 10 book chapters and 25 patents to her
credit.
Prof. P. Muthukumar
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Guwahati
Prof. P. Muthukumar received PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras
during 2005. He joined at IIT Guwahati as Assistant Professor in January 2006 and became
Professor in January 2015. He received DAAD research fellowships during September –
December 2000, June-July 2008, and June - July 2010. He is the recipient of IEI Young
Engineer Award - 2010 in Mechanical Engineering from Institute of Engineers (India). He
Editorial Members
received Bhaskara Advanced Solar Energy Fellowship (BASE Fellowship) from Indo - U.S.
Science and Technology Forum (USIEF), Jan 2014 and also received Er. M.P. Baya National
Award 2015 from Instituted by the Institution of Engineers (India), Udaipur. He is also the
Fellow of Institute of Engineers (India). He is one of the Commission Member to represent
India in the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR). He also received Fulbright-Nehru
Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship from (USIEF). He served as the President,
Indian Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ISHRAE),
Guwahati sub-chapter. He received “Mechanical Engineering Design Award 2017, from
National Design & Research Forum (NDRF) of “The Institution of Engineers (India)”, 21st
Dec 2017. Recently, he has been honored as Eminent Engineer -2019 from “The Institution of
Engineers (India)”, Assam State Centre on 15th September 2019. He served as visiting
Professor in many Universities in USA and Germany and having research collaborations with
over 20 International Universities. He has been published over 240 research articles in
various International Journals and conference proceedings. He is having six national patents
for his credit. He has supervised 15 PhD and 45 M.Tech student’s theses. He has successfully
completed 5 sponsored research projects worth of 192 lakhs and five consultancy projects
worth of 35 lakhs. Currently he is handling seven research projects worth of 760 lakhs. He is
the reviewer of more than 50 International Journals in the area of hydrogen energy, energy
storage, refrigeration, heat transfer, etc. and also reviewed several research proposals from
DST, MNRE, Qatar Research Board, etc. His area of research includes hydrogen energy
storage, metal hydride based thermal machines, coupled heat and mass transfer in porous
medium, porous medium combustion, sorption heating and cooling systems, etc.
India Country Status Report on Hydrogen and Fuel Cells
1. Introduction
India with a population of approx. 1.3 billion is the second most populous country and the third
largest economy (measured by purchasing power parity) in the world. With significant decrease in
poverty level, increased energy access for citizens, availability of cleaner cooking fuel and growing
penetration of renewables, the country is advancing on a faster growth path.
The country’s total primary energy supply (TPES) is 881.9 Mtoe (coal accounting for 44.3%, oil
25.3%, bioenergy and waste 21.2%, natural gas 5.8%, hydro 1.4%, nuclear 1.1%, wind 0.4% and
solar 0.4%)1. The TPES per capita is 0.66 toe and energy consumption per capita being 0.44 toe1.
India’s per capita energy consumption stands at 30% of the world’s average. With the faster
economic expansion in the country, the energy demand is rising in almost all sectors industry,
commercial, residential, agricultural and transport. India’s energy system is largely dependent on
fossil fuels i.e. coal for power generation, oil for transport & industrial sector and biomass for
residential heating & cooking. Two thirds of the TPES is meet by domestic production and thus the
country is largely dependent on oil and gas imports. In the year 2018, the breakup of India’s net
import was 205.3 million tons of oil and its products, 26.3 Mtoe of gas and 141.7 Mtoe of coal
accounting for 46.1% of the total primary energy consumption (TPEC). Major consumption is in
the Industrial sector (42% of the total final consumption i.e. TFC) followed by residential (29% of
TFC), transport (17% of TFC) and services (12% of TFC)1 as shown in Figure1. The rapid growth
in the total final energy consumption and electricity demand is currently being met largely by fossil
fuels.
Figure 1. India’s total primary energy supply (TPES) and total final consumption (TFC)
India is the world’s third largest consumer of oil, for which country has to depend heavily on oil
imports. India’s oil refining capacity is the fourth largest in the world and the country is a major
exporter of the refined products. Government of India is pursuing roadmap to continue being the
refining hub and expand its capacity with a plan through 2040. However, currently the dependence
on oil import is 80% and is expected to grow further. Another important fuel which is natural gas,
is currently 6% in the energy mix the aim is to increase its share to 15%. As per the projections,
India’s energy demand could double by 2040 and electricity demand triple.
With the rise in energy demand the major impact will be on environment. The energy sector is
considered to be the major source for environmental concerns, including the local air pollution,
GHG emissions and thus accounting for the implications associated with climate change. Thus, there
is a penetrating need of addressing the growth of energy demand, at the same time providing clean
energy to the masses and keeping the climate change threats under consideration.
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The increasing air pollution in several cities of the country (e.g. Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Faridabad,
Kanpur etc.), is the key concern, energy sector has been identified as the major source of emissions.
Sometimes the high concentrations of air pollutants have been reported even due to the non-energy
sector related emissions e.g. from crop burning etc. Out of the top 20 most polluted cities in world,
ten in the list are from India. The situation is really alarming as in the year 2017 this problem has
caused around 1.2 million pre-mature deaths.
The Government of India has laid several policies and is targeting to provide sustainable and
affordable solutions, reduce emissions and lay down a path for economic growth. Several steps
have been taken to address the climate change and local air pollution threats e.g. The National Green
Tribunal has revised the standards in terms of the emission norms for thermal power plants and
restricted the particulate matter to 30mg/m3, NOx and SOx emissions to 100 mg/m3. The major NOX
emissions are arising from transport sector (40% of total), power sector (31%) and industrial sector
(20%). The main source being heavy duty vehicles followed by coal-based power generation and
use of coal in the industry. The power sector is the major source of SOx emissions (more than half
of the total). Figure 2 shows the sector wise percentage breakup of the emissions in the country.
CO2 emissions NOx emissions

4%
3%5% 3% 6%1% 20%
13% 34%
39%
31%
41%
Industry Power Industry Power

Transport Agriculture Transport Agriculture
Buildings Others Buildings Others
SOx emissions PM 2.5 emissions

2%6% 2%
0%5%
33% 31%
54%
7%
54% 4%
2%
Industry Power Industry Power

Transport Agriculture Transport Agriculture
Buildings Others Buildings Others
Figure 2. Percentage contribution of the emissions in various sectors
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Globally a massive decarbonization is required, if the ambitious emission reduction scenario is to

be met and to achieve the 2DS i.e. limit global warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Our
country is determined to contribute under the Paris agreement towards reducing the emissions and
increasing the share of non-fossil fuels in various sectors.
The National Action Plan on Climate Change was launched in 2008 with not only developmental
objectives but at the same time addressing the climate change issues effectively. Building on the
National Action Plan on Climate Change, the Government of India has initiated several National
missions. Other than the deployment targets and incentive mechanisms, these missions are towards
RD&D. These National Missions includes:
• National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency

• National Solar Mission
• National Electric Mobility Mission
• National Smart Grid Mission
• National Mission on Advanced Ultra Super Critical Technology
• National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage
An aggressive renewables-based deployment has been seen in the India’s energy mix in the past
decade, with 84GW of grid connected renewable electricity capacity in December 20191. Next target
is towards achieving 175 GW by 2022 and eventually will have 450 GW of renewable energy
capacity.
With the Government of India’s Ujjala scheme and Prime Minister’s Ujjawala Yojana, electricity
and clean cooking solutions have been provided to wider mass. The Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram
Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) and the Saubhagya schemes have been very helpful in providing electricity
access in villages and thus to the rural households of the country. Between 2000 to 2019, around
700 million people got access to electricity1. These schemes have helped in improving the standard
of living of the people and addressing the health issues by providing cleaner energy solutions.
The major five ministries in India responsible for energy and related matters includes the Ministry
of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), the Ministry of Power (MoP), the Ministry of Petroleum
and Natural Gas (MoPNG), the Ministry of Coal (MoC) and the Department of Atomic Energy
(DAE).
Funding agencies in the area of energy are Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST),
Department of Science and Technology(DST), Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Department
of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Ministry of
Coal (MoC), Ministry of Earth Science (MoES), Ministry of Heavy Industries (MoHI), Ministry of
New and Renewable Energy(MNRE), Ministry of Power (MoP), Ministry of Petroleum and Natural
Gas (MoPNG). These are being mentioned in Figure 3.
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Ministry of Science and Technology
Department of Biotechnology
Ministry of Power
Department of Atomic Energy
Energy Research,
development and Ministry of Coal
Demonstration
Ministry of Earth Sciences
Ministry of Heavy Industries
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
Department of Scientific & Industrial

Research
Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas
Figure 3. Ministries in the country for Energy related Research, Development and Demonstration
Thus, the pressing need is to meet the rising energy demand, decarbonization of various sectors,
providing energy security and having sustainable growth. All these points set up the context for the
need of an abundant, non-polluting, efficient and clean fuel which could be used for most of the
energy sectors, same way as the conventional fuel or electricity does and the same time could
provide energy security to the nation.
Hydrogen is a promising energy carrier, which has the potential to address the various energy sector
related challenges and technically from the application point of view can substitute the conventional
fuels. Hydrogen with its abundance, high energy density, better combustion characteristics, non-
polluting nature etc. have vast advantages over the conventional fuels.
Hydrogen can be produced from a wide variety of primary or secondary energy source and the
feedstock can be decided based on the local availability. Appropriate production route can be used
for production from locally available feedstock and the hydrogen produced can be used for wide
range of end use applications. As such the diversified production routes can reduce our dependence
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on imports and can assist towards energy security. The use of hydrogen can reduce the CO2 related
emissions significantly at the point of use and if green hydrogen is used then there is capability to
decarbonize the entire value chain, enabling reduced emissions and climate change threats. It can
even decarbonize the sectors where it is difficult to reduce emissions.
Reduced
Imports
Address
Climate Energy
change Security
Issues Hydrogen
as fuel
Decarboni Integration
sation of of
different Renewable
sectors s
Figure 4. Benefits of using Hydrogen
Hydrogen can provide linkages between energy supply and demand, in both a centralized or
decentralized manner, thereby enhancing the overall energy system flexibility. The low carbon
energy source can be connected to sectors like transport and buildings or even hard to abate sector
like steel and cement industry. A lot of benefits are there in using hydrogen as an energy carrier,
some of these for representation are mentioned in figure 4.
At rural places with limited or no access to grid, the use of hydrogen can provide energy services.
With the ambitious targets of achieving the larger renewable deployment, the intermittency being
the major drawback, which makes energy storage as inevitable part of the energy system. Hydrogen
can be used for small to large scale and short to long term storage to meet both the seasonal or daily
supply demand imbalance. Besides various options including power to gas, power to power and
power to fuel can be explored with hydrogen being used to meet the supply demand mismatch in
case of renewables2. The flexibility provided by fossil fuels in terms of use of high-density fuel
when and where ever to be used, is lost with the use of renewables. However, the use of hydrogen
provides avenues to integrate renewables with energy system and still provide the same set of
flexibility through either of the power to X means.
Hydrogen energy is at present at early stage of penetration in energy sector. Many funding agencies
are supporting a broad based RD&D projects on different aspects of hydrogen economy including
hydrogen production, storage and utilization for stationary, power generation and for transport
applications (using either IC engines or fuel cell technologies). The focus of RD&D efforts in this
area is towards the development of new materials, processes, components, sub-systems and systems.
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The various funding agencies in India are both the Government agencies and public sector
companies. Some of these includes the Ministry of Science and Technology, CSIR Laboratories,
Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Defence Research & Development Organizations, Indian
Space Research Organization, Oil & Gas companies, Department of Atomic Energy and automobile
sector, oil and gas companies are also involved in the research, development and demonstration
programme related to hydrogen.
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy constituted a high-level committee to come up with
Hydrogen energy roadmap. The National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap was laid in the year 2006 to
provide a blueprint for the long-term public and private efforts which was required for hydrogen
energy development in the country. The roadmap identified the technology gaps and challenges in
the introduction of hydrogen in large scale, in a phased manner. Suitable pathways were suggested
and the policies, legislation, financing, support infrastructure required were identified. Two major
initiatives were identified namely green energy for transport and for power generation. The key
points of these initiatives are listed in Table 1.
Table 1 : National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap: Vision – 2020
Source: NHERM (2006) Report, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy3
Green Initiative for Future Transport Green Initiative for

(GIFT) Power Generation (GIP)
• Hydrogen cost at delivery point at Rs. 60-70 • Hydrogen bulk storage
per kg, hydrogen bulk storage methods and methods and pipeline to
transport via pipeline to be in place be in place
• Hydrogen storage capacity to be 9 wt%, • Support infrastructure-

Support infrastructure- large number of large number of
dispensing stations dispensing stations
• Development of safety regulations, • 1000 MW hydrogen

legislations, codes and 1000 MW hydrogen- based power generating
based power generating capacity setup capacity setup standards
• 1,000,000 hydrogen-fuelled vehicles on • 50MW small IC engine

road- 50MW small IC engine standalone standalone generators
generators
• 50,000 two/three wheelers - 50MW • 50 MW standalone fuel

standalone fuel cell power packs cell power packs
• 50,000 cars/taxis - 900 MW aggregate • 900 MW aggregate

capacity centralized plants capacity centralized
plants
• 1100,000 buses and vans
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Another high level steering committee was constituted under the chairmanship of Dr. K.
Kasturirangan on Hydrogen and Fuel cells by MNRE. The committee had sub-committee on
different themes like hydrogen production, storage, utilization, transport, IPR, PPP, awareness,
safety and standards. These sub-committees in the year 2016 prepared excellent comprehensive
reports and suggested the way forward on the above mentioned themes.
A major global initiative involving 24 countries and European Union is the Mission Innovation,
which was announced on 30th November 2015. The objective behind Mission Innovation (MI)
Initiative is to dramatically accelerate global clean energy innovation – double the Government’s
clean energy R&D investment over 5 years. There are eight Innovation Challenges (ICs) under
MI, which are aimed towards encouraging greater private sector investment in transformative
clean energy technologies. IC8 is focused on renewable and clean hydrogen, India is participating
in this challenge. The objective will be to accelerate the development of a global hydrogen market
by identifying and overcoming key technology barriers to the production, distribution, storage,
and use of hydrogen at gigawatt scale. The implementation will be done through multinational
research and large-scale demonstration efforts and involvement of public- private sectors on
industry-directed breakthroughs. The different activities will be organized under four streams:
Making hydrogen, sharing hydrogen, using hydrogen and cross-cutting issues. IC8 is exploring
linkages with IC3, IC4 and IC5.
DST has planned for a “Hydrogen Valley Platform” which is a platform being developed to
combine together several hydrogen applications into an integrated hydrogen eco-system covering
the entire hydrogen value chain (production, storage, distribution and final use). The objective of
this platform is to bring together industry and policy makers to exchange their respective
experiences and trigger dialogue between them so as to identify the key factors of success and
jointly discuss how to best capture, process and disseminate high quality learnings through the
IC-8 platform. This platform will be providing opportunity to learn from leading hydrogen
valleys across the globe and would enable understanding of issues and barrier to providing the
technology.
Department of Science and Technology has taken up development of hydrogen and fuel cell
technologies in a mission mode. The focus is towards creating volumes and infrastructure,
towards demonstration of niche applications, provide facilitative policy support and provide
symbiotic international linkages. The hydrogen mission will be directed towards advancement of
hydrogen and fuel cell technologies through R&D and validation, to make technologies
competitive in cost and performance, to reduce institutional and market barriers towards
commercialization.
The Hydrogen and Fuel Cell program by Department of Science and Technology is focused to
develop transformational technologies that reduce the cost of hydrogen production, distribution
& Storage, diversify the feedstock available for economic hydrogen production, enhance the
flexibility of the power grid, and reduce emissions through novel uses of low-cost hydrogen.
Thirty research projects have been supported under this program.
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2. Hydrogen Production
The term hydrogen economy was coined way back in 1970 by John Bockris and he mentioned
that hydrogen economy can replace current hydrocarbon-based economy. This replacement will
lead to more of energy security and lesser negative effects on the environment.
Figure. 5 Pathways to Hydrogen economy

The recent renowned interest in the use of hydrogen is an indication of the benefits of use of
hydrogen in the entire energy ecosystem. The different pathways to hydrogen economy include
hydrogen production, storage, transport and utilization, and the different options for each of these
are included in figure 5.
The current global demand of hydrogen is 70 million metric tons per year, in energy terms its
around 330 million toe4. Most of which is being produced from fossil fuels (76% from natural
gas and around 23% from coal, remaining from electrolysis of water) which consumes 6% of the
global natural gas and 2% of the global coal4. All this results in CO2 emissions of around
830Mt/year. Most of this CO2 produced is not captured, only around 130Mt of this is being
captured and used in fertilizer industry. The situation will change when the hydrogen production
from non-fossil fuel-based production will increase and with greater renewables deployment, the
shift will be towards green hydrogen production. The production methods are basically dependent
on the feedstock which in turn also depends on the local availability. Depending on which
feedstock is used, the different routes for hydrogen production can be reforming, gasification,
pyrolysis, fermentation and electrolysis or photolysis. However, the most widely used method
for hydrogen production includes steam methane reforming, methanol reforming, partial
oxidation of hydrocarbons, auto thermal reforming, coal gasification, electrolysis of water and
thermochemical processes as mentioned in figure 6.
The other methods of production including biomass gasification and photocatalytic or

photoelectrochemical are still at the research scale. The cost of hydrogen produced depends on
the method of production, separation and purification to achieve the required purity. Hydrogen
is an important raw material for chemical industry, petroleum refining, food processing, metal
processing etc. Partial oxidation of oils stands to be one of important segment which produces
large quantities of hydrogen and is also an efficient method (70-80%). Demand of hydrogen in
refineries has increased due to stringent emission norms and hydrogen is being used for various
8|Page
hydrotreatment processes like hydrodesulphurization, hydrodenitrogenation and hydrocracking

processes.
Figure 6. Hydrogen production routes based on feedstock used
Most of the hydrogen produced is used for oil refining (33%), ammonia (27%), methanol production
(11%), steel production via DRI (3%) and others. Hydrogen can be produced either centrally and
then subsequently transported and distributed at the point of use or in a distributed manner where it
is being produced at the point of use.
The estimated hydrogen production and consumption in the country during 2007-08 as per a study
undertaken by the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun is mentioned in Table 2.
Table 2: Estimated hydrogen production and utilisation in the year 2007-08
Estimated Production Utilization during

during 2007-08 2007-08 (Million
Sector (Million Tonnes / Tonnes / Year)
Year)
Fertilizer Industry 1.99 1.99 (Captive Use)
Petroleum Refineries 1.69 1.46 (Captive use)
Chlor Alkali Industry 0.073 0.064
Total 3.753 3.516
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Hydrogen production from natural gas without the carbon capture, use and sequestration (CCUS)
is currently the most economic method and the lowest cost is USD1/kgH2 in Middle East, while
the electrolysis of water is the most expensive route. However, at places where power from
renewables or nuclear is available to meet the heat or electricity requirements, hydrogen is
produced using electrolysis or thermochemical route rather than depending on import of natural
gas. Currently in India most of the hydrogen produced, is the byproduct of either the refinery
processes or chlor-alkali plants. There were around 40 chlor-alkali units in 2013-14 producing
66000 tons of by-product hydrogen out of which 6600 tons was not utilized. Most of it is
internally used for various processes and very less quantity is available for utilization for other
applications. However, the major rise in demand of hydrogen will be in the end user industry,
further with stringent environmental regulations, its demand will foresee an increase in both
transport and power generation sectors. The hydrogen energy market was valued around USD 50
million in the year 2017 and further as per the Applied Market Research Report5 it is estimated
to grow to USD 81 million by the year 2025, thus experiencing a CAGR of 6.3% from 2018 to
2025.
It is also pertinent to mention that H2 produced from fossil fuel sources will not be green
hydrogen i.e. it will result in the formation of CO2 as a by-product. Major hydrogen player, Japan
has demonstrated the production of green hydrogen from coal by using carbon sequestration and
ensuring net zero greenhouse gas emission. Greener methods of hydrogen production are actively
being explored in India as well and on to this end, research is being carried out from materials to
systems level. Cleaner methods of hydrogen production chiefly constitute electrolysis, via
chemical or photoelectrochemical routes.
In India, hydrogen is being commercially produced in the fertilizer industry, petroleum refining
and chemical industries and also as a by-product in chlor-alkali industries. Some limited
hydrogen is also produced through electrolysis for commercial use. Most of it is captive hydrogen
however less merchant hydrogen is available for utilisation. The cost of hydrogen from different
methods of production as per the MNRE analysis is included in Figure. 7.
Cost for production

813
1000
800
433
600
245 258
400
150
200
0
Steam Coal Biomass Biomass Electrolyzer
Methane Gasification gasification microbial Alkaline
Reforming
Rs/Kg 150 245 258 813 433
Figure 7. Cost of hydrogen production
10 | P a g e
Department of Science and Technology activities on Hydrogen production are mainly focused
on:
• More efficient reforming processes and development of newer membranes

• Improving the efficiency of water splitting reaction
• Development of cost efficient and earth abundant catalyst for photo-electrochemical water
splitting
• Newer materials, catalysts and electrodes to accelerate the reaction
• Sorption enhanced reforming for improved hydrogen production from biogas.
Various research groups in India are engaged in RD&D projects on Hydrogen production,
following is a brief on the developments in the country on hydrogen production:
• At Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) Mumbai, several approaches are being explored
towards hydrogen production technologies. The technologies can be broadly classified into three
categories. Hydrogen production a) using only electricity i.e. Alkaline Water Electrolysis (AWE)
and Proton Exchange Membrane based water electrolysis (PEM), b) using only heat source i.e.
thermo-chemical splitting of water like Iodine Sulphur (I-S) process and (Cu-Cl) process and c)
using both electricity and heat source like High Temperature Steam Electrolysis (HTSE) and
Hybrid Sulphur (Hy-S) cycle. The objectives have been materials development and technology
demonstration of the processes towards a sustainable hydrogen production from water. In alkaline
water electrolysis, BARC technology is available for commercialization, which involves
10 Nm3/hr of hydrogen production. This is very much suitable for chemical industries like
fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, metallurgical operations, food, telecom and fuel cell industry.
In the high temperature steam electrolysis (HTSE) using solid oxide cells, operating
temperature in the range of 800-1000C, suitable microstructure and processing conditions have
been developed for a number of MIEC electrode materials like PSCF, Nd 2NiO4, LSCM, BSCF
etc. and its suitability in electrolysis mode of operation have been studied. To realize the HTSE
cell, tubular cell approach has been followed in which Ni-YSZ support tube acts as hydrogen
electrode along with impervious coating of YSZ electrolyte and suitable oxygen electrode have
been fabricated and tested for its performance. In order to have technology demonstration of
HTSE, integration of single cells to fabricate multicell stack hydrogen generator of higher capacity
and performance evaluation for a long duration are being planned.
In iodine-sulphur process of thermo-chemical splitting of water for hydrogen production, which

consists of three chemical reactions: 1) Bunsen reaction, which is the acid production step
(exothermic, T=120C), 2) sulphuric acid decomposition to produce oxygen (endothermic,
T=870C) and 3) hydrogen iodide decomposition to produce hydrogen (endothermic, T=450C).
All these reactions have been tested at BARC. Suitable iron based catalysts have been developed
to minimize the use of expensive platinum based catalysts in the high temperature H2SO4
decomposition reaction step. Numerical simulations to evaluate different approaches for scaling
up of packed bed membrane reactor for HI decomposition and other reaction steps have been
carried out. Extensive research are being also carried out for other hydrogen productions
technologies like Hy-S process, Cu-Cl process, PEM based electrolysis process at BARC. Thrust
has also been given at BARC to develop high temperature reactor capable of supplying process
heat at a temperature of around 1000°C, which envisage that besides electricity, nuclear energy
11 | P a g e
would play a significant role in the production of alternate transportation fuel such as hydrogen,
by splitting of water.
• Design of electrodes and electrolytes for hydrogen generation using sea water has been explored
at CSIR-CECRI, Karaikudi. Reduced Titania was used as catalyst. The primary challenge with
finding the right catalyst for sea water splitting has been balancing the effectiveness of the
catalyst and its stability in water. Based on the materials developed electrolyser technology has
been developed and transferred to the industry.
• H2 production via sorption enhanced reforming process is being carried at Institute of Chemical
Technology, Mumbai. Hybrid bi-functional materials which combine the benefits of both the
reforming catalyst and CO2 absorbent are being explored. The feedstock used includes biomass
surrogates (such as bio-ethanol, bio-butanol, bio-oil and bio-gas). The bi-functional materials
being studied includes hydrotalcite along with Ca, Zn and Cu as promoters. Cu-based materials
results in the highest production of high purity H2 and fast removal of CO2. Other aspects of SER
including process configurations, reactor engineering, reactor systems and materials are also
investigated.
• The use of transition metal mixed oxides for Alkaline water Electrolysis is being explored by
the Chemistry research group at University of Lucknow. Low temperature synthesis routes have
been explored to synthesize Spinel (ferrites and cobaltities) and Perovskite oxides. Electrodes are
being prepared on conducting support using suitable techniques. Improved electrocatalytic
properties have been observed for these materials.
• Hydrogen generation via catalytic route, explores the on-board generation of hydrogen from
liquid organic compounds. Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers (LOHCs) such as formic acid,
methanol etc. can be catalysed to release hydrogen at attainable operating condition and is being
explored at Thermax.
• ONGC Energy Centre (OEC) has been involved in collaborative research to further the transition
to hydrogen energy. OEC is investigating thermochemical water splitting for large-scale
hydrogen generation. The four-step Cu-Cl that operates at 550 °C and the I-S cycle that operates
at 900 °C have been designed and developed for electrolysis of water. The group has developed
a new patented Cu-Cl cycle and also demonstrated a closed loop I-S cycle. Besides these the open
loop I-S process is at advanced stage of development. The research groups at OEC are involved
in various other research activities, including improvement of the processes, development of
materials used in construction of reactors and electrodes, membranes of electrochemical
processes and gas separation, catalysts, high temperature corrosion testing and integration of heat
source with thermochemical cycles
• Another major activity is the multi-institutional project on Generation of Solar Hydrogen, which
is initiated and supported by the Technology Systems Development Program of Department of
Science and Technology. The project is running in a consortia mode comprising of IIT Kanpur,
IIT Madras, Dayalbagh Educational Institute Agra, IIT Jodhpur, CECRI, Karaikudi and BARC
Mumbai. The project aims at developing scalable designs of solar hydrogen generation systems
using multiple technologies. Besides bridging the technical challenges that exists at multiple
length scales in the development of a solar energy conversion technology, the initiative was
planned to bridge the complementary strengths of different Indian universities and national
laboratories so as to map the laboratory-scale prototype to the corresponding field-scale device.
12 | P a g e
The central emphasis of the project has been to design, synthesize and characterize the best
possible solar-chemical-materials combination suitable for large scale applications. The goal of
the project is towards integrating the materials developed into a photoreactor to generate
hydrogen and oxygen with water as the feed. Materials close to international standards and
general heuristics for material design are being developed. Apart from the photocatalytic and
photo-electrocatalytic route, an electrolyser integrated to photovoltaic modules will be fabricated.
• Few groups are working on the hydrogen generation from methanol in the country. Considering
the present investment made by Government of India on Methanol, generation of hydrogen from
methanol will play a key role in near future
Other than the above-mentioned key research initiatives, a lot of work on hydrogen production is
being carried out at several other institutions in the country, a brief mention of the same is being
presented in Table 3.
Table 3: Hydrogen production related work at different institutions in India

Institution Nature of work
Studies on the catalytic decomposition of sulfuric acid
in the I-S process for hydrogen production, studies on
Bunsen reactor for production of sulfuric acid and HI
using electrochemical cell, concentration of HIx
solution using electrodialysis, catalytic decomposition
of Hydrogen Iodide (HI) into I2 and H2, development
of hydrogen transport membrane reactors for hydrogen
iodide decomposition followed by hydrogen removal,
1 IIT Delhi modelling of membrane electrolysis cell for Bunsen
reaction and electro-electrodialysis unit for
concentration of HIx solution, mechanistic studies on
the catalytic decomposition of sulfuric acid in the I-S
cycle for hydrogen production, areas of design of
nanostructured materials with applications in water
purification, hydrogen generation, photo-
electrochemical studies, superconducting materials
(oxides, oxypnictides and oxychalcogenides).
Hydrogen and liquid fuels from biomass Gasification,
hydrogen generation using biomass gasification for
fuel cell application (HBGF), multi-fuel gasification
system to accept woody biomass or biomass
2 IISc, Bangalore
briquettes, development of semiconductor nano-
composites for photo-catalytic water splitting into H2
and O2 under solar light irradiation, TiO2 based
photocatalysts for organic waste degradation
13 | P a g e

Electrocatalysis and photocatalysis for hydrogen
3 IIT Madras
production, generation of solar hydrogen
Optimized production of bioethanol and biohydrogen

4 IIT Guwahati
from lignocellulosic biomass in a fluidized-bed reactor
Mission mode project on hydrogen production through
biological routes, maximisation of gaseous energy
recovery from organic wastes through bio-hythane
5 IIT Kharagpur process, pilot scale packed bed reactor configuration
for high rate of hydrogen production, biological
hydrogen production using distillery effluent and
kitchen waste
6 IIT Kanpur Photoelectrochemical water splitting and fuel cells
Non-thermal plasma assisted direct decomposition of

IIT Hyderabad H2S into H2 and S, transformation of greenhouse gases
7
like methane and CO2 into for syngas/H2 by low
temperature plasma catalysis
8 IIT Indore Hydrogen generation though catalytic route
Development of efficient hydrogen supply system

9 CSIR-NEERI
through liquid organic hydrides
Photocatalysis for water splitting, conversion of
Banaras Hindu
10 methanol to hydrocarbons, catalytic cracking of
University
Methane
Establishment & demonstration of hydrogen
production and utilisation facility through
UPES, photovoltaic-electrolyser system at NISE located in
11
New Delhi Gwalpahari, survey on inventory and quality of by-
product hydrogen potential in selected major sectors in
India
Methanol reformer to produce 10kL/hour hydrogen
coupled with 10kW fuel cell, 50kL/h reformer for
12 IICT, Hyderabad
50kW fuel cell, catalysts for reformation of glycerol,
generation of hydrogen from biomass derived glycerol
Hydrogen generation by photocatalytic decomposition
13 C-MET, Pune of toxic hydrogen sulphide, development of prototype
photo-reactor for hydrogen production from hydrogen
14 | P a g e

sulphide under natural sunlight, photocatalysts
development
Investigation on bio-hydrogen production by thermo-
14 NIT, Calicut chemical method in fluidized bed gasifier under
catalytic support and its utilisation
Bio-inspired catalysts for the reversible conversion
15 IACS, Kolkata
H+ + e- → ½ H2
Production of hydrogen gas from biomass and wastes
16 NIT Rourkela
using fluidized bed gasifier
Development of transition metal tantalates and
CSIR-IMMT, oxynitrides for water splitting and pollution
17
Bhubaneswar abatement, functional hybrid Nano structures for
photo electrochemical water splitting
Generation of hydrogen from biomass derived
18 ICT, Hyderabad
glycerol
Process analysis for copper-chlorine (Cu-Cl)
thermochemical hydrogen production process, ICT–
OEC Process for copper-chlorine (Cu-Cl)
19 ICT, Mumbai thermochemical hydrogen production, reaction of
metals with HI, reaction of metals with hydroid acid,
decomposition of certain transition metal iodides and
biomass conversions
Oxidation of CuCl and recovery of Cu, CuCl &
recovery of Cu – energy optimisation, electrolysis of
20 CECRI, Karaikudi CuCl – HCl system for the preparation of CuCl2 & H2,
electrodes and electrolytes for water electrolysis to
generate hydrogen and hydrogen
ARCI-CFCT, Novel electro catalysts, depolarisers for water
21
Chennai electrolysis, sea water electrolysis
Technology packages for woody and briquetted
Tata Energy
biomass using throat-less gasifier with closed top,
22 Research
large scale bioreactor facility for bio-hydrogen
Institute
production.
Naval Material
Bio-hydrogen with chemical fuel cells for electricity
23 Research
generation, hydrogen generation by autothermal
Laboratory
reforming
(NMRL), Mumbai
Design of electrolytic cell for economic and energy
NIT Raipur efficient biohydrogen production from leafy biomass
24
by electro-hydrogenesis
15 | P a g e

Combined pyrolysis and steam gasification to
25 NIT Tiruchirappalli establish multifuel Quraishy production with
maximum hydrogen yield
Open loop thermochemical S–I cycle of H2S split for
26 CSIR-IIP, Dehradun carbon-free hydrogen production in petroleum
refinery
Thermochemical hydrogen production, iodine-sulphur
27 OEC, Mumbai
& copper-chlorine cycle for hydrogen production
Production of hydrogen from renewable and fossil fuel
28 CIMFR, Dhanbad based liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons by non-
thermal plasma reforming
Sardar Patel Renewable
Energy Research Dual fuel and thermal application, forced and natural
29
Institute, Vallabh drafts biomass gasification processes
Vidhya-nagar, Gujarat
Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) by the [Fe-Fe]-
hydrogenase enzymes, graphene oxide modified aza
30 IACS, Kolkata
terminated ITO supported graphene as electrode
material, catalyst development
31 ONGC Thermochemical hydrogen generation
CNT doped polymeric membranes for hydrogen
32 University of Rajasthan
Purification
Hydrogen production through biological routes, PEM
based water electrolysis, catalysts for hydrogen from
33 JNTU Hyderabad glycerol, Studies on novel ways of enhancing CO2
utilization in catalytic oxidative dehydrogenation
reactions
SPIC Science PEM methanol electrolyser for the production of 1
34
Foundation, Chennai Nm3/hour of hydrogen
Shiksha ‘O’
Anusandhan Porous graphene modified metal oxide photo anode for
35
University, electro-chemical water splitting
Bhubaneswar
Thapar university, Reforming of biogas for hydrogen production and its
36
Patiala utilization in CI engine under dual fuel mode
Synthesis and characterization of nanostructured metal
oxides and quantum dots for solar hydrogen
37 DEI, Agra
production, Photoelectrochemical generation of
hydrogen
16 | P a g e
Various Institutions/ Industries/ Organizations working in India on Hydrogen Production are

mentioned in the country map in figure 8. Several research groups are actively working in the
field of hydrogen production, the list of scientists and researchers working at these organizations
on hydrogen production and their contact is included in Table 4.
Figure 8. India country map showing various institutions and companies working on hydrogen
production
The key players in the Indian hydrogen market are Linde India Limited, Praxair India Private
India Limited, Inox Air products, , Air Liquide India, Gujarat Alkalies And Chemicals Limited,
Bhuruka Gases Limited, Aditya Birla Chemicals (India) Ltd., TATA Chemicals Limited, , DCW
Limited (DCW), and GHCL Ltd.
Table 4. List of scientists working on hydrogen production at various institutions /organizations

in the country with their email
17 | P a g e
Affiliation Name Email ID
IISc, Bangalore Prof. S. Dasappa s.dasappa@gmail.com
IIT Kharagpur Prof. D. Das ddas@bt.iitkgp.ac.in
NIT Rourkela Dr. Abanti Sahoo asahoo@nitrkl.ac.in
IIT Hyderabad Dr CH subrahmanyam csubbu@iith.ac.in
CSIR-Institute of Minerals
and Materials Technology, Dr. Kulamani Parida kmparida@yahoo.com
Bhubaneswar
IICT Hyderabad Dr. K. Venkateswarlu chvenkat@iict.res.in
University of Rajasthan Prof. Y. K. Vijay vijayyk@gmail.com
JNTU Hyderabad Dr. M. Lakshmi Narasu mangamoori@jntuh.ac.in
JNTU Hyderabad Dr. V. Himabindu drvhimabindu@gmail.com
JNTU Hyderabad Dr. P.S. Sai Prasad saics@uohyd.ernet.in

SPIC Science Foundation,
Dr. G. Sasikumar
Chennai
National Institute of
Dr. Pratima Gupta pgupta.bt@nitrr.ac.in
Technology Raipur
NIT Tiruchirapalli Dr. K. N. Sheeba sheeba@nitt.edu
IIT Madras Dr. P. Selvam selvam@iitm.ac.in
IIT Madras Dr. Sundararajan tsundar@iitm.ac.in
IIT Guwahati Dr. K. Mohanty kmohanty@iitg.ac.in
IIT Guwahati Dr Nageswara Rao Peela peelanr@iitg.ac.in
CSIR-NEERI Dr. Rajesh B. Biniwale rb_biniwale@neeri.res.in
Thapar university, Patiala Dr Amit Dhir amit.dhir@thapar.edu
IIT Kanpur Dr. Raj Ganesh S. Pala rpala@iitk.ac.in
18 | P a g e
CSIR-CECRI Karaikudi Dr. S Ravichandran sravi@cecri.res.in
CSIR-CECRI Karaikudi Dr. N Sathaiyan sathaiyan@cecri.res.in
pd.vaidya@ictmumbai.edu
ICT Mumbai Dr. Prakash D. Vaidya
.in
IIT Indore Dr. Sanjay Kumar Singh sksingh@iiti.ac.in
BARC Dr. P. K. Patro pkpatro@barc.gov.in

ashok@chemistry.iitd.ac.i
IIT Delhi Dr. Ashok K Ganguli
n
DEI, Agra Prof. Vibha Rani Satsangi vibhasatsangi@dei.ac.in
DEI, Agra Prof. Sahab Dass Kaura drsahabdas@gmail.com
BHU Dr. Ravi Kumar Asthana rasthana@bhu.ac.in
University of Lucknow Dr. Narendra Kumar Singh nksbhu@yahoo.com
CIMFR, Dhanbad Dr Sudip Maity sudip_maity@yahoo.com
ONGC Dr. Damaraju Parvatalu parvatalu@gmail.com
shibli_ncol@rediffmail.co
SN college Azamgarh Dr. Salman Sultan
m
Dr. Atindra Mohan
BARC atinmb@barc.gov.in
Banerjee
BARC Dr. Mrinal Rajesh Pai mrinalr@barc.gov.in
IACS, Kolkata Ankan Paul rcap@iacs.res.in

IACS, Kolkata Praveen Kumar praveen.kumar@iacs.res.in
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar

Univ. Lonere, Maharashtra Dr. Yogesh S. Mahajan ysmahajan@dbatu.ac.in
(BATU)
gd.yadav@ictmumbai.edu.
ICT mumbai Prof. G.D.Yadav
in
gd.yadav@ictmumbai.edu.
ICT Mumbai Prof. G.D.Yadav
in
19 | P a g e
CSIR-IIP, Dehradun Dr. Ankush B. Bindwal ankush.bindwal@iip.res.in
CSIR-IIP, Dehradun Dr Subham Paul spaul@iip.res.in

CSIR-IIP, Dehradun Dr. Shailendra Tripathi
IICT Hyderabad Dr. Rohit Kumar Rana rkrana@iict.res.in
IACS, Kolkata Ankan Paul rcap@iacs.res.in
IACS, Kolkata Praveen Kumar praveen.kumar@iacs.res.in
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
Univ. Lonere, Maharashtra Dr. Yogesh S. Mahajan ysmahajan@dbatu.ac.in
(BATU)
ARCI-CFCT Dr. R. Balaji rbalaji@arci.res.in
20 | P a g e
3. Storage
The major bottleneck in the hydrogen pathway is compact, efficient, conformable, cost effective and
safe storage of hydrogen. The requirements from a hydrogen store is different for stationary and
vehicular applications. For transportation sector, the weight and size should be low, refueling should
be fast and the hydrogen storage system should have most of the characteristics which current fossil
fuel vehicles have like range, passenger space, safety, cost, acceleration/deceleration, start and stop,
refueling time, life and cost etc. There are several challenges towards storing hydrogen and
achieving the above-mentioned criterions, those are summarized in Figure 9.
Figure 9. Technical barriers to the hydrogen storage

Hydrogen can be stored in either compressed, liquified and solid state, the various options are
mentioned in figure 10. Since the density of hydrogen is very low 0.089 kg/m3, as such storing in
gaseous form requires compression to high pressures. The commercially available Type III and Type
IV tank, can store hydrogen at 350 bar or 700 bar. As we go from Type I to Type IV tanks the weight
of the tank reduces but the cost increases. Besides this compression of hydrogen requires around 21
MJ/kg or 0.13 kWhel / kWh H2 to compress from ambient to 700 bars through a five-stage
compressor6. The method of hydrogen production which could supply hydrogen at a higher pressure
up to 30 bar or more can save in terms of compression power. Since the compression power is
logarithmic function of the pressure to which hydrogen is compressed. The energy required to
compress hydrogen is equivalent to 4.1wt% to compress from 20bar to 700bar. The Type I tank
which are all metal and thus high in weight, this weight penalty is reduced in the rest three types of
tanks. Since hydrogen has high permeability as such an inner liner of metal is provided to ensure
gas tightness, while the stability is provided by a partial (Type II) or complete (Type III) mesh of
carbon fiber. In Type IV tank the inner liner is made of polymer and outer winding with carbon
fiber, thus these composite containers are light in weight but high in cost. Caron fiber accounts for
more than 50% of the cost of the tank and next major cost is BOP. The choice of auto industry for
FCEVs is compressed hydrogen. Common fuel cell vehicles like Honda Clarity, Toyota Mirai have
pressurized vessel-based storage. According to the Toyota Motor Corporation, the gravimetric
density of 2017 Mirai tank is 5.7wt% at 700 bars. Mirai tank has an internal volume of 122.4 L with
volumetric energy density of 4.9 MJ/L7. In the tank 5 kg of usable hydrogen is stored at 700 bar and
the cost predictions states that is if production rate is 1000 systems per year than cost will be USD
21 | P a g e
8,171 while if the production rate is 20k/year then cost will drop down to USD 45298. Such high-
pressure tanks need to be fabricated indigenously, currently team at IIT Ropar is working towards
the same.
Figure 10. Different ways of hydrogen storage

The liquefaction of hydrogen is much more energy intensive than compression, roughly
requires 0.33 kWhel/kWhH2. Liquid hydrogen temperature is 20K (density is 70.8 kg/m3), as such
the container design should involve super insulation to protect any heat inflow into the vessel, but
these are not meant to bear high pressures. The liquified hydrogen storage suffer with boil-off losses,
which are observed after the pressure build-up and the evaporated hydrogen is released to maintain
the tank pressure, thereafter the tank system acts as an open system. The boil off losses are
minimized if the tank is designed to have high volume to surface ratio. A spherical tank with 25 mm
of insulation containing 5 kg of hydrogen is expected to have energy densities 6.4 MJ/L and
7.5wt%9. The cost associated with liquefaction is around USD 1/kg. The cost of storage varies for
small and larger reservoirs for e.g. USD 167/kg for a capacity of 4300 kg for large scale storage
vessel and USD 386/kg for 100L internal volume tank for vehicular applications10,11. Liquid state
storage being a mature technology and is widely used for space and industrial applications.
There is another possibility like cryo-compressed tanks, which is a hybrid method combining both
compressed and liquid state storage. Hydrogen is stored at cryogenic temperatures (typically 70 K -
200 K) and elevated pressure (typically 100 bar – 500 bar). The benefits of such tanks are that a
higher effective storage density of H2 and reduced system size could be achieved rather than
spending on the energy and cost for a complete hydrogen liquefaction, thereby even achieving a
longer driving range. Here the tank is designed to hold both the cryogenic liquid and also withstand
the internal pressure. A prototype for BMW with boil off rate of 3-7 g/h and energy densities 5.4
wt% and 4.0 MJ/L has been reported12.
22 | P a g e
Another method to store hydrogen is in solid state form where either the molecular hydrogen gets
adsorbed on the high surface area materials or absorbed to form a hydride. This method of storage
has several advantages as against the compressed and liquid state storage methods i.e. it is safe,
volumetrically efficient and operating conditions involved like temperature and pressure are
optimum unlike the other two methods. Hydrogen is bonded via weak Vander Waals bond in case
of adsorption on to high surface area materials like Metal organic frameworks (MOF), zeolites,
carbon nanostructure (CNF, GNF, AC, CNT etc.), clathrate hydrides and polymers of intrinsic micro
porosity. The enthalpy of formation for such materials is low around 10 kJ/mole and thus a low
temperature is required to hold the hydrogen, however this method of storage is reversible and
kinetics is fast. The reported capacities in MOFs is around 4.5wt% at 78 K and 1.0wt% at room
temperature and 20 bar, the volumetric energy density reaches up to 7.2 MJ/L at 100 bar and 77 K.
Hollow glass microsphere, microcapsules and micro balloons are interesting materials which are
very inexpensive, safe and can store large quantities of hydrogen. The uptake and release of
hydrogen is under defined set of temperature and pressure conditions.
Metal hydrides are compounds which react with hydrogen under certain temperature and pressure
conditions reversibly to store hydrogen. There are wide range of metal hydrides studied in literature
and these have been classified in to classes like AB (e.g. TiFe), A2B (e.g. Mg2Ni), AB2 (e.g. ZrMn2)
and AB5 (e.g. LaNi5) etc. In these classes, A is a strong hydride forming element and B is non
hydriding element. Since the metal used in formation of alloys are higher in weight, these materials
suffer from poor gravimetric capacity but have high volumetric capacity. Some of the well-studied
metal hydrides include FeTi, LaNi5, MmNi5, Ti-V-Cr alloys etc. The requirement from a metal
hydride, if it is to be used for different hydrogen storage applications is that it should have
equilibrium pressure of 1-10 bar and desorption temperature of room temperature to max of 1000C.
There are some metal hydrides which are unstable and have lower enthalpy of formation, while
some have high enthalpy of formation and thus are very stable. The strategies followed to get the
required thermodynamics i.e either stabilize/destabilize is either alloying, nanosizing, interface
effects or nano-confinement.
Figure 11. Gravimetric capacity versus desorption temperature plotted at 1 bar
23 | P a g e
Typical gravimetric capacity of these metal hydrides range between 1-3 wt% except for magnesium
hydrides. MgH2, which has 7.6 wt% capacity but very high desorption temperature of greater than
3000C. This desorption temperature can be lowered through either milling, nanosizing, alloying,
making composites, doping or addition of catalysts, but still the temperatures are very high for being
used for PEMFC based applications. A plot of gravimetric capacity versus the desorption
temperature for various hydrides is shown in figure 11.
In case of metal hydrides, the hydrogen interacts with metals to form the corresponding hydrides.
Owing to the high molecular weight of the metal, the gravimetric capacity of stored hydrogen within
the respective metal hydrides are observed to be very small (1- 3 wt%). Therefore, the hydrides of
lighter elements (with lower atomic number, e.g. C-, N-, B- etc.) are more suitable for hydrogen
storage due to their higher gravimetric hydrogen storage capacity. Among them most common
example is the saturated hydrides of carbon, also known as alkanes. e.g. cycloalkanes including
cyclo hexane, methyl cyclohexane, decaline, bicyclohexyl containing 6 - 8 wt% hydrogen and 60 -
62 g/L capacities. Conventionally, these cycloalkanes are used as solvents in various processes;
however, their high hydrogen content can also be used for hydrogen storage applications. The
dehydrogenation reaction of these cycloalkane compounds (CnH2n+2) follows through aromatization
(CnHn), which introduces stability to the product species and thereby increases the feasibility of the
dehydrogenation reaction. The larger enthalpy for dehydrogenation 64 - 69 kJ/mole of H2, requires
higher temperature for dehydrogenation 210 to 350 0C, which further inhibits its application.
Although catalysts have been known to improve the dehydrogenation performance.
The liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHC) involves loading a carrier molecule with hydrogen
and then extracting at the point of use. Cost associated with conversion and reconversions, also the
energy equivalent requirement is between 35% - 40% of the hydrogen itself. In addition, carrier
molecules in LOHC are often expensive and off board regeneration is required. Examples of LOHC
include methylcyclohexane, with toluene as carrier but toluene is toxic in handling and cost is
approx. USD 400-900 per tonne. Another nontoxic alternative is dibenzyltoluene and is further more
expensive, other options includes methanol and formic acid but will not reduce the greenhouse gas
emissions, besides there are issues related to safety and public acceptance.
The major disadvantage in Gr IV hydrides (CnH2n+2) or cycloalkanes, is their high stability in

dehydrogenated state. The sp3 hybridised C centres are charge neutral and reacts at considerably
higher temperature, making their hydrogen storage application quite energy intensive. Both
theoretical and experimental studies suggested that the partial substitutions of carbon atoms in the
ring by nitrogen could help to substantially lower down the dehydrogenation enthalpy by reducing
their aromaticity of the dehydrogenated molecules thus making heterocycles better candidates. In
terms of reactivity and complete extraction of hydrogen, the Gr IIIA (Boron, B) and Gr IIIB
(Nitrogen, N) based hydrides can be considered another option to their carbonaceous counterparts.
Ammonia (NH3) and borane (BH3) are the principal hydrides of nitrogen (N) and boron (B).
Ammonia can be used to produce hydrogen in presence of appropriate catalysts but then the reaction
is endothermic, toxicity and corrosion are the major problems. Formation of ammonia and getting
hydrogen requires 15 – 36% of hydrogen content and also in case of an uncombusted ammonia leak
can lead to formation of particulate matter and acidification. Borane(BH3) is an unstable hydride
and therefore tends to dimerize at room temperature and pressure. Diborane is also considered to be
high reactive, since it violently reacts in presence of water or air. Reaction of diborane with metal
hydrides, especially from Gr. 1 and 2 tend to form secondary borohydrides with stable conformation
via metathesis reactions. These secondary borohydrides are also known as metal borohydrides (e.g.
LiBH4, NaBH4, LiK(BH4)2). This class of compounds where the complexing ion is either alanate or
borohydride or amide have very high gravimetric capacity even upto 16 wt% or higher.
24 | P a g e
The stability of the tetrahedral borohydride sites and the presence of metal cations (Li+, Na+, Mg2+)
introduce ionic nature in these compounds. Therefore, these borohydrides are observed to be
sensitive to moisture and oxygen. However, under inert conditions, thermal decomposition of these
borohydrides occurs at higher temperature (250-400°C) which results in the formation of subsequent
metal borides and hydrogen. Various methods have been reported to lower the decomposition
temperature of complex borohydride, a few of them are, formation of binary metal borohydrides
(e.g. LiK(BH4)2), increase in the cationic size, use of support material (e.g. activated carbon and
carbon nanostructures, etc.), composite formation with another metal hydride (e.g. LiBH4-MgH2)
which also results in increased regenerability. The regeneration of these complex hydrides is the
major challenge. Other methods include formation of an ammoniate complex (e.g. Mg(BH4)2, 2NH3)
which resulted in better dehydrogenation behaviour. Replacement of the ammonia with metal
amides results into a borohydride-amide complex formation of M1BH4-M2NH2, where M1, M2=Li,
Na, Mg and Ca. The hydrogen generated from the complex have been observed to vary within the
range of 7.8-11.3wt%, however, their decomposition temperature are as high as 360-480°C
depending on chemical composition.
Although the complex hydrides demonstrate high hydrogen storage capacity, the most prominent
disadvantages of the metal borohydrides are their extreme susceptibility to atmospheric conditions,
high decomposition temperature and irreversibility. Both of these disadvantages of metal
borohydrides can be related to the ionic interaction between the metal and borohydride species.
Therefore, incorporating more covalent characteristics in the borohydride material has been
observed to make them prone to decompose at lower temperature. Interaction between the
ammonium cation (NH4+) and the borohydride anion (BH4-) is found to result in N-B bonds, which
shows partial covalent nature. Therefore, analogous to organic compounds (based on C-C skeleton)
a wide variety of compounds based on the B-N based skeletal system are observed to demonstrate
prominent hydrogen storage properties. These B-N based hydrogen storage compounds have been
termed here as chemical hydrides. One example of such hydride is ammonia borane (NH3BH3)
which is having gravimetric capacity of 19.6 wt% and can be handled under environmental
conditions. There are several other chemical hydrides e.g. hydrazine boranes, hydrazine bis boranes
etc which have been studied widely.
Department of Science and Technology activities on Hydrogen storage and fuel cells are
focused on:
• New material structures for high gravimetric capacity

• Light weight high pressure hydrogen storage cylinder for vehicular applications
• Graphene and hard composite materials for hydrogen storage
• Selection, synthesis and characterization of metal hydrides
• Novel materials including metal organic framework and complex hydrides for thermal
management applications
• Development of composites, graded materials, mixtures, materials and catalysts for Solid
Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC)
25 | P a g e
Some of the research work being carried at different institutions in the area of hydrogen storage is
summarized below:
• A lot of work is being carried at IIT Bombay on materials for hydrogen storage. Various materials
like metal, complex and chemical hydrides are being studied. The cyclability of metal hydrides
and reversibility of chemical hydrides along with catalysis and support materials for achieving
enhanced performance are being investigated. The synthesis of metal hydrides on large scale,
synthesis from industrial grade materials and effect of impurities is being carried out. Other
materials like hollow glass microspheres have been studied and ways to improve their pore size,
pore density, thermal conductivity to enhance their hydrogen storage capacity has been studied.
Metal hydride-based systems simulation, design, development and their performance analysis are
being carried out at IIT Bombay. Studies on Mg based hydrides and their composites are being
carried.
• Hydrogen Energy Centre was established at Banaras Hindu University with the funding of MNRE.
A lot of pioneering work on novel materials, carbon nanotubes/nanofibres, graphene and
composites, hydrogen Storage and applications in hydrogen fuelled two/three wheelers has been
carried.
• Large number of metal hydride based applications have been demonstrated at IIT Guwahati.
Thermal management challenges in the metal hydride-based devices has been addressed. These
devices simulated, fabricated and demonstrated. Figure 12 shows some of these applications.
MH based heat
MH based TES transformer
Valve (Up to 30 °C
system
MH
(Up to 100 MJ) ΔT)
H2
Other Gases Other gases in H2
void space
absorbed
Absorption in MH bed
(Exothermic)
Flushed gases
Absorption
(1 to 2 bar)
MH Bed
Absorbed MH based
pure H2 hydrogen storage
MH based Desorption (Up to 1 kg)
cooling system (Endothermic)
(-5°C to 10°C)
Desorption Heat addition

Pure H2 (High (70 to 100 °C)
pressure)
Flushed bed
MH based
hydrogen
purification
MH based
(99.99% pure H2) MH based
hydrogen fuel cell
(Up to 100 kW) hydrogen
compression
(100 to 200 bar)
Figure 12. Metal hydride based applications
26 | P a g e
• In the metal hydrides-based storage the storage reactor design is very important. Since the
exothermic and endothermic absorption and desorption processes requires efficient thermal
management to ensure better performance, fast charging/discharging and achieving close to the
theoretical capacities are important. A lot of system level simulation and optimisation work has
been carried at IIT Madras, IIT Guwahati and IIT Tirupati.
• Two Energy Storage platforms have been established by the Department of Science and
Technology. The need of innovative ideas, cutting edge research, human resource development,
cost effective materials and technologies, widespread dissemination and public acceptance of the
hydrogen technologies has been the major objective for establishment of these centres.
The DST – IIT Bombay Energy Storage Platform on Hydrogen has been established with an aim
to carry out materials and systems research, prototype demonstration, technology development,
incubation of innovative ideas, industrial interactions, collaborations, manpower development and
information dissemination in the field of hydrogen. The focus of the centre is towards selection,
synthesis and characterization of Metal Hydrides (MH) and other novel materials, fabrication of
MH based fast reaction beds and testing the performances of various MH thermal management
systems for various applications. The lead organization is IIT Bombay and has four partnering
institutions includes IIT Guwahati, IIT Kanpur, IIT Tirupati, NIT Rourkela. The centre will act as
a nodal point of contact for information in the field and will provide mentorship & support to
researchers in the country who are working in the area of hydrogen.
DST- NFTDC Energy Storage Platform on Hydrogen has been established at Nonferrous Materials
Technology Development Centre, Hyderabad with a core theme of hydrogen-based materials to
energy devices. The focus of the centre will be specific hydrogen related systems like SOFC –
integrated system and its outcomes at device level, Mg + C based hydrogen storage and La-Ni-X-
Y based sorption cooling device. The network of researchers engaged in centre comprise of
scientists from NFTDC, IISc Bangalore, IIT Madras, IIT Bhubaneswar, Sri Chitra Thirunal
College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram.
A brief review of the research in the area of hydrogen storage carried at different institutions,
organizations is included in the Table 5 and these are shown on country map in figure 13.
Table 5. Institutions/ organization/ companies working on hydrogen storage and nature of work
being carried
S.No. Institution Nature of work

Hydrogen Energy Centre; development, synthesis
and characterization of hydrogen storage materials,
nanotubes/nanofibres, graphene and composites
based on these, applications of hydrogen storage
1 BHU
materials, hydrogen storage in hydrogen fuelled
two/three wheelers, hydrogen combustion catalytic
cooker
2 IISc Bangalore Solid state hydrogen Storage, heat and mass

transfer in hydride beds, thermodynamics of
27 | P a g e

storage, various applications of solid-state storage
of hydrogen, organometallic compounds, chemical
hydrides for hydrogen storage
Materials for hydrogen storage: metal hydrides,
complex and chemical hydrides, hollow glass
microspheres; hydrogen generation from complex
hydrides via both hydrolysis and thermolysis;
reversibility of complex and chemical hydrides;
cyclability of metal hydrides, effect of impurities
on metal hydrides, large scale synthesis of metal
3 IIT Bombay hydrides, catalysis and support materials;
theoretical studies on de/adsorption on various
hydrides; hydrogen storage systems simulation,
modelling and development, thermal management
in metal hydride beds; different applications of
systems developed like thermal energy storage,
backup power etc.
Numerical and experimental analysis for the

development of a metal hydride based hydrogen
energy storage, metal hydride based thermal energy
storage, metal hydride based compressor system,
hydrogen purification.
Design & application of carbon-based hetero atom
4 IIT Guwahati modified nano-porous materials for hydrogen
storage, development of supported noble metal
catalysts using surfactant assisted electroless
plating process for the dehydrogenation of light
alkanes, ionic liquid assisted thermal
dehydrogenation of ammonia borane
Design, development and testing of metal hydride

based devices, thermal and mechanical engineering
design of the hydride beds; studies on hydrogen
storage in metals, composites and carbon materials,
diffusion studies of hydrogen in alloys, metal
5 IIT Madras
hydride devices; microporous, mesoporous and
hierarchical zeolites; organic-inorganic hybrids,
metal-organic frameworks;
heterogeneous catalysis: eco-friendly
nanostructured catalysts design for organic
28 | P a g e

transformations (petrochemicals, fine chemicals
and pharmaceutical intermediates)
Nano materials and nanocomposites, Mg based
University of materials, complex hydrides, effect of nano sizing,
6
Rajasthan AB5 alloys and thin films for hydrogen storage
Metal hydrides for solid state hydrogen storage,

metal hydride based hydrogen compressors and
6 IIT Tirupati
other devices, metal hydride based devices
DFT studies of borohydride, atomistic modelling of

cathode electrode for PEM fuel cells, designing of
7 IIT Indore
Mn-based electrocatalysts for CO2 vs. proton
reduction
MOFs for hydrogen storage, hydrogen solubility as
a probe for Pd/oxide composites prepared by
internal oxidation of Pd-rich alloys nano hybrids,
8 IIT Kanpur
novel materials and mechanisms for hydrogen
storage, hydrogen embrittlement of aluminium
lithium alloys and carbon alloyed iron aluminides
Amidophosphine borane as potential source for
9 IIT Hyderabad hydrogen – both experimental and computational
approach
Membranes for hydrogen purification,
chemiresistor gas sensors, hydrogen storage
materials, photocatalysts for wastewater
decontamination; modelling, design and
10 IIT Ropar development of Type IV tanks, high pressure
testing,; inorganic and organometallic synthesis
and catalysis, design of multifunctional metal-
organic framework (MOF) materials, development
of transition metal photocatalysts
solid state and materials chemistry, photocatalytic
11 IIT Roorkee energy storage, catalytic materials, nanomaterials
for hydrogen storage
Agricultural based activated carbon for hydrogen
storage, Mg based materials and composites for
12 ARCI
hydrogen storage
29 | P a g e

Liquid organic hydrides, catalysts and catalytic
reactors for LOHC dehydrogenation, zeolites and
13 CSIR-NEERI
MOFs for hydrogen storage
Novel materials for hydrogen storage, metal

14 NIT Rourkela hydride based hydrogen storage device
Development of a metal hydride based hydrogen

15 GIDC, Vadodara storage system for standalone portable hydrogen
fuelled Gen-set
National institute Development of nanostructure / composites and

16 of Technology, metastable magnesium based multicomponent
Tiruchirappalli alloys through mechanical alloying for hydrogen
storage applications
Development of design methodology for light
17 CMRI, Durgapur weight high pressure hydrogen storage composite
cylinder for vehicular applications
Figure 13. Institutions working on hydrogen storage in India
30 | P a g e
Table 6. Scientists working on hydrogen storage at various organizations/institutes in the country

Affiliation Name E mail ID
BHU, Varanasi Prof. O. N. Srivastava ons@bhu.ac.in
IISc Bangalore Prof. S. Srinivasa Murthy ssmurthy@iitm.ac.in

IIT Madras Prof. B. Viswanathan bviswanathan@hotmail.com
IIT Madras Prof. S. Ramaprabhu ramp@iitm.ac.in
University of Prof. I. P Jain ipjain46@gmail.com
Rajasthan
IIT Bombay Prof. Pratibha Sharma pratibha_sharma@iitb.ac.in
IIT Guwahati Prof. P. Muthukumar pmkumar@iitg.ac.in
NFTDC Dr. K. Bala Subramanian director@nftdc.res.in
IIT Kanpur Prof. P.K. Bharadwaj pkb@iitk.ac.in
IIT Hyderabad Prof. T. K. Panda tpanda@iith.ac.in
IIT Kanpur Prof. R. Balasubramaniam bala@iitk.ac.in
IIT Guwahati Prof. Mahuya De mahuya@iitg.ac.in
IISc Bangalore Prof. B. R. Jagidar jagidar@iisc.ac.in
ARCI Dr. R. Vijay vijay@arci.res.in
ARCI Dr. N. Rajalakshmi rajalakshmi@arci.res.in
IIT Kanpur Prof. R. Balasubramaniam bala@iitk.ac.in
IIT Madras Prof. P. Selvam selvam@iitm.ac.in
IIT Madras Prof. M. P. Maiya mpmaiya@iitm.ac.in
IIT Kanpur Prof. Anandh Subramaniam anandh@iitk.ac.in
IIT Tirupati Prof. E. Anil Kumar anil@iittp.ac.in
IISc Bangalore Dr. P. Balachandra p.balachandra@gmail.com
NIT Rourkela Prof. Paresh G Kale pareshkale@nitrkl.ac.in

CSIR-NEERI Dr. Rajesh B. Biniwale rb_biniwale@neeri.res.in
IIT Ropar Prof. Dhiraj K Mahajan dhiraj.mahajan@iitrpr.ac.in
IIT Indore Prof. Biswarup Pathak biswarup.pathak@gmail.com
IIT Ropar Prof. Ravi Mohan Prasad ravimohan.prasad@iitrpr.ac.in
IIT Kharagpur Prof. Swati Neogi swati@che.iitkgp.ernet.in
NIT Rourkela Dr. Anbarasu Subramanian anbarasus@nitrkl.ac.in
31 | P a g e
Affiliation Name E mail ID

IIT Ropar Prof. Nagaraja C. Mallaiah cmnraja@iitrpr.ac.in
IIT Roorkee Prof. Tapas Kumar Mandal tapasfcy@iitr.ac.in

BARC Dr. Seemita Banerjee seemita@barc.gov.in
IIT Kharagpur Prof. M. Ramgopal ramg@mech.iitkgp.ernet.in
IIT Kanpur Prof. Jayant K singh jayantks@iitk.ac.in
IISER, Dr. M.M. Shaijumon shaiju@iisertvm.ac.in
Thiruvananthapuram
Prof. Sankara Sarma V
IIT Bombay sankara@iitb.ac.in
Tatiparti
Sree chitra Thirunal

college of Dr. G. Mohan mohan.g.menon@gmail.com
Engineering,
Thiruvananthapuram
IIT Bhubaneshwar Dr. Soobhankar Pati spati@iitbbs.ac.in
Pillai HOC College
of Engineering and Dr. Manvendra Vashistha manvendrav@mes.ac.in
Technology,
Maharashtra
Dr. Airody Vasudeva
NIT Karnataka avachem@gmail.com
Adhikari
IIT Jammu Dr. Satya sekhar Bhogilla Satya.bhogilla@iitjammu.ac.in
NPL, Delhi Dr. Bipin Kumar Gupta guptabgupta@nplindia.org

Electrical R & D
Association GIDC, Dr. G. S. Grewal
Vadodara
NIT Tiruchirappalli Dr. S. Kumaran kumara@nitt.edu
Central Mechanical
Engineering Dr. Surendra Kumar
Research Institute,
Durgapur
Ahmedabad Dr. Sridhar Dalai Sridhar.dalai@ahduni.edu.in
University
Vivekanand Global Dr. Subodh Srivastava
University, Jaipur
32 | P a g e
4. Transport
Whether hydrogen is being produced in a centralized or decentralized manner, there is a need to

transport hydrogen to the place of distribution or to take it to the point of use. In case of centralized
production, the cost of hydrogen generation is lower due economies of scale but T&D costs are
higher, while in decentralised production say at the refuelling station (using on site electrolyser or
reformer), the T& D costs are minimized but cost of production is higher.
From the production site, there can be different ways of transporting hydrogen, like in the form of
compressed gas or liquified form or in the form of high energy density molecules i.e in the form
of larger molecules and transporting as liquids as indicated in figure 14. Several countries have
extensive existing natural gas pipelines, either blending of hydrogen in existing natural gas grids
is a possibility or a dedicated infrastructure of laying down pipelines for hydrogen is required.
Figure 14. Different ways of transporting hydrogen
Thus, hydrogen can be transported either via road through tube trailers and trucks, through
pipelines, or in the form of other molecules like methanol etc and then can be reformed at the point
of usage or via shipping networks.
The choice of selection of appropriate method depends on geography, the volume to be transported,
distance of transport and the end use application. Thus, long distance and large volume of hydrogen
transport can be via pipelines and shipping route, while local distribution can be using either
pipelines or trucks and trailers. It is known that pipelines have high CAPEX but a lower operational
and maintenance cost, while the other methods including road transport may have low CAPEX but
high O&M costs as the quantity of hydrogen being carried need to be compared with the energy
required to transport and cost associated. Pipelines exist when hydrogen in large volumes need to
be transported within refineries or over large distances (<1500km).
33 | P a g e
For further higher distances carrying in the form of high energy density materials like LOHC is a
preferred choice. However, the conversion of hydrogen to LOHC and reconversion at the point of
use adds up to the cost, offsetting the purpose. This will depend on the end use i.e. whether the
requirement is of pure hydrogen for fuel cells or for other applications, for example hydrogen can
be transported in form of ammonia for use in fertilizer industry. Thus, from economics point of
view it’s difficult to suggest a single solution and it depends on factors mentioned above.
However, in the absence of pipelines liquid hydrogen is transported and carried through super
insulated, cryogenic tankers and trucks. However, the liquid hydrogen and gaseous hydrogen are
better choice when the distances and volumes to be transported are relatively lower compared to
where there is a need of pipelines or shipping network. With the density of hydrogen in liquid state
being 70.8 kg/m3, significant volumes can be carried at intermediate distances. Mostly liquid
hydrogen is carried via tanker trucks where there is a consistent requirement and the savings in
terms of cost of transport (as larger quantity carried than compressed via trailers) could be
encouraging than the added liquefaction cost. Gaseous hydrogen can be transported through high
pressure tanks making clusters of such tanks transported via tube trailers. The density of hydrogen
at pressure of 200 bar is 15.6 kg/m3 and at 500 bar it is 33kg/m3. Pressurized tube trailers operate
at pressures between 200-500 bar to carry small volumes of compressed hydrogen over short
distances, with the tube trailer capacity in the range 500-1000 kg H2. Else to carry intermediate
volumes and larger distances liquid hydrogen is preferred option and can carry upto 4000 kg in
liquified hydrogen truck. Over longer distance it is economical to carry liquid hydrogen than
compressed hydrogen in the absence of pipelines. Challenge with carrying liquid hydrogen is boil-
off. The various possible ways in which hydrogen can be transported and distributed for both the
centralised and decentralised production is shown in figure 15.
Figure 15. Possible ways for hydrogen transport, distribution and refuelling
34 | P a g e
Another method of transporting hydrogen at ambient temperature and pressure is in the form of
liquid organic carriers, as being mentioned above. Hydrogen can be carried in the form of
hydrocarbon carrier, which are high energy density materials having low flammability and toxicity
and either can be used as such depending on end use application or can be converted to hydrogen at
the point of use.
Hydrogen refuelling stations is an integral part of the hydrogen supply chain considering the
vehicular applications. The small refuelling stations can refill 10-20 vehicles and have capacity of
50-100 kg/day. In future with the adoption of FCEVs and the market is mature, there will be need
of larger refuelling stations of capacity 2000 kg/day.
IOCL have a pilot project for using hydrogen enriched compressed natural gas (H-CNG) in vehicles.
H-CNG has been found to be more efficient than CNG in terms of reducing emissions. IOCL has
developed a single-step procedure for blending hydrogen with CNG and the resultant blend is
expected to lower down the emissions and will be cost effective. The Supreme Court had directed
IOCL to finish this pilot project soon and H-CNG introduced in buses in 2020.
PSUs such as ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation) and Hindustan Petroleum also conduct
research on Hydrogen. One of such project being conducted with the help of Industry and
Government is shown in Figure 16.
Figure 16. H-CNG Dispensing Station set at Faridabad in Haryana
35 | P a g e
5. Hydrogen Utilisation - Fuel cell Technology
The most promising of all fuel cell technologies developed is Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell
(PEMFC), which operates at a lower temperature. The variant of PEMFC is Direct Alcohol Fuel
Cell (DAFC), which is direct fed with methanol and ethanol as fuel instead of hydrogen. A majority
of organizations are involved in fundamental research, for e.g. polymer membranes electrolyte,
anode and cathode catalysts and membrane electrode assembly and hydrogen storage with very few
involved in manufacturing and technology. Some institutions are involved in more application-
oriented research such as stack and balance of plant development and fuel cell bus demonstration
program. PEMFC technology has been developed to the commercialization stage in many countries
like Canada, USA, Japan, Germany etc. As per Industry Review, the shipment of PEMFC units
dominated in 2011 for the stationary and transport applications. In India, a large number of groups
are engaged in the research, development and demonstration activities of PEMFC but it has not
reached the stage of commercialization. A few organizations like CFCT-ARCI, CSIR-Network
Labs, NMRL, VSSC and BHEL are engaged in complete development of PEMFC system.
Engineering input and infrastructure for producing such system in large numbers for trials /
demonstration are lacking. These activities rely on pressurized bottled hydrogen procured at high
cost. On site hydrogen generation units (reformers) operating on commercial fuels such as LPG,
methanol or natural gas are not available in the country, which again restrict the technology
development process.
Department of Science and Technology activities on Hydrogen Utilisation are mainly focussed on:
• Novel materials, catalysts for durable and low-cost PEM Fuel Cells
• Nano-doped hybridized biodiesel as pilot fuel for hydrogen dual fuel operation in a CI engine
and compressed hydrogen-fuel cell integrated system suitable for light duty vehicles
• Stationary power backup application for telecommunication towers and gas turbine combuster
A brief summary of the activities being carried out at various organisations in the area of fuel cells
is presented in Table 7. Further organisations where research work on different components like
catalysts support material is included in table 8, on membrane in table 9 and other than these
components is included in table 10. Table 11 summarizes various other studies being carried in the
area of fuel cell.
Table 7. Different organisations with research groups working on fuel cells and the nature of work
Organizations Nature of work
IITM, NCCR, IITB, IITG, IITK, IITKGP, IITR, IITH, • Basic Science
IISc, BESU, CSIR- CECRI, CSIR-NCL, CSIR-NPL, • Catalysts, membrane, bipolar
CFCT- ARCI, CIPET, CSIR-CSMCRI, BITS- Goa, Plate
TU, AIIST, PSGIAS, Anna University, UoH, DTU • Modelling
and many other universities, BHEL, SSF (closed), • Stack and system
ISRO Labs & Def. labs • Application and demonstration
Tata, M&M, TVS, REVA, NMRL, Some CSIR • System integration using bought
labs, IITs, BPCL, RIL out stacks for demonstration
• Demonstration of indigenously
built fuel cells
36 | P a g e

• Application Simulation studies
ARCI, CSIR-NCL, CSIR-CECRI, CSIR NPL, • Materials (large scale)
Arora Matthey, Falcon Graphite, TCIC
Table 8. Different organisations with research groups working on the catalyst support materials
IITM, NCCR, CFCT- • Modified CNT
ARCI, CSIR-NCL, CSIR- • Microporous CNT
CECRI, BESU, ARAI- • Oxides
Pune, JNCASR and many • Metal Carbides, different carbons,
other universities • Ni mesh substrate
• Graphene,
• Nitrogen doped graphene and hybrid carbon
nanostructures
• Nitrogen-doped multi walled carbon nano coils
• Multi walled carbon nano tubular coils
• Nitrogen –doped mesoporous carbon with
graphite walls
• Nitrogen-doped multi walled carbon nanocoils
Table 9. Different organisations with research groups working on working on Membranes

Organization Nature of Work
CSIR-CSMCRI, CSIR- • Nafion Based Membranes
CECRI, Anna • Nafion Composites
University, CSIR-NCL, • Organic-Inorganic composite membranes (nafion with
UoH, CFCT-ARCI, silica, MZP and MTP)
NMRL, CIPET, IICT, • Polyelectrolyte complexes of nafion and poly (oxyethylene)
BHU, BIT, AIIST, IIT- bisamine
D, ONGC and many • Fluorinated polymers
other groups • Fluorinated poly(arylenes ether sulfones) containing
pendant
• Sulfonic acid groups
• Fluorinated poly(ether imide) copolymers with controlled
degree of sulfonation
• PVA based polymers
• Inter penetrating with PSSA
• Incorporation of mordenite
37 | P a g e
Organization Nature of Work

• Stabilized forms of phosphomolybdic acid, phosphotungstic
acid and silicotungstic acid incorporated into PVA cross linked
polymers
• Novel mixed-matrix membranes sodium alginate (NaAlg)
with PVA and certain heteropolyacids (HPAs) such as PMoA,
PWA and SWA
• High temp polymers-PBI, SPEEK
• Cross-linked SPEEK-reactive organo clay nanocomposite
• Phosphonated multiwall carbon nanotube-poybenzimidazole
composites
• Novel blends of PBI and poly(vinyl-1,2,4-trizole)
• SPEEK/ethylene glycol/ polyhedral oligosilsesquioxane
hybrid membranes SPEEK and poly(ethylene Glycol)
diacrylate based semi interpenetrating network membranes
• Heat treated SPEEK/diol membrane
• High temp polymers-others
• Anhydrous proton conducting hybrid membrane
electrolytes for high temperature (>100•C), PEM
• Aprotic ionic liquid doped anhydrous proton conducting
polymer electrolyte membrane
• Polysulfone/ clay nanocomposite membranes
• Multilayered sulphonated polysulfone/ silica composite
membranes
• Other type of polymers
• SPSEBS/ PSU blends- bleeding SPSEBS (sulfonated poly
styrene ethylene butylene polystyrene) with boron
phosphate (BPO4)
• Organic-inorganic nano-composite polymer electrolyte
membrane
• Zwitterionic silica copolymer based cross linked organic-
inorganic hybrid polymer electrolyte membranes
• Carbon nanotubes rooted montmorillonite (CNT-MM)
reinforced nano-composite membrane
• Domain size manipulation by sulfonic Acid functionalised
MWCNT’s
• Functionalized CNT based composite polymer electrolytes
• Minimally hydrated polymers, replace water with proton
mobility facilitator
38 | P a g e
Table 10. Research and development work on other Components/ Materials/Issues at various
organizations
Components Organizations Nature of work
/ Materials/
Issues
CFCT-ARCI, CSIR- Resin impregnated, resin
NPL, CSIR-NCL, SSF, bonded, exfoliated
NMRL, IITB, TU, graphite, metal, PCB
Bipolar IITG, IITK, VSSC,
plates DTU
Carbon CSIR-NPL, CFCT- PAN, modified rayon,
substrate ARCI, NMRL carbon composites
GDL CFCT-ARCI, CSIR- Studies on micro porous
CECRI, CSIR-NPL, layer, method of
IITM, Bharathiyar fabrication, effect of
University additives, impedance
analysis
Operation CSIR-CECRI, CFCT- Dead end mode operation
methods ARCI
Fuel CFCT-ARCI, AU with Effect of impurities in gas
Impurities SVCE feed
Durability CFCT-ARCI, CSIR- Single cells & stack,
CECRI, IITM composite membrane
GDL
Table 11. Other Studies being carried at various organizations
Study Organizations
Flow field modelling IITM, IITG, IITH, NMRL, CFCT-ARCI
Heat and mass transfer IITM
modelling
Cathode reactant supply CFCT-ARCI with IITM
modelling and design
Operation IITB, CFCT-ARCI
Control system modelling IITM, IITB, SSN College of Engg., CFCT-
ARCI with Anna University
Power electronic IITB, Anna University with CFCT- ARCI, SSN,
modelling IISER Kolkata
Electrochemical IITM , IITD, IISER Pune, NIT-W, AU-Vizag,
modelling CFCT-ARCI, IITM(cyl. cathode), IITM
(multiple layer), Bharathiyar University
Electrical conductivity IITG, BARC
39 | P a g e
System integration
modelling with wind
energy etc., MNIT, BESU, IITB, IITK
Stack modelling CFCT-ARCI, IITB
Stack analysis, artificial
neural network CFCT-ARCI with ISI, CSIR-NCL, CFCT-ARCI
Molecular dynamics CSIR-NCL with IISER-Pune
With reference to systems development Table 12 summarizes the organisations working on the
development of fuel cell systems and the major achievements. Figure 17 shows the major
activities in the area of hydrogen and fuel cell and the major institutions working in the area are
marked on country map. Similarly, the institutions were research on membrane is being carried
out in the country are marked on the map in figure 18, while on catalyst development are indicated
in figure 19. Table 13 lists the major institutions and scientists working in the area of fuel cell,
membrane in table 14 and on catalyst development in table 15.
Table 12. Summary of organizations involved and major fuel cell R&D work at these
institutions in India
Institute/Organi Main Focus Achievements/Remarks
zation Area(s)
CECRI, PEMFC, DMFC, Developed a 1 kW PEMFC stack,
Chennai DBC, hydrogen Developed a 5 kW PEMWE
generation
CFCT, Chennai PEMFC, hydrogen Developed PEMFC stacks up to 5 kW, Grid
generation independent power systems (3 kW), Fuel
cell systems for transport applications with
Mahindra Rise and Reva
CGCRI, SOFC Developed electrode and membrane
Kolkata materials for high performance SOFCs and
Low Temperature SOFC. 400 W SOFC
stack developed
SPIC SF, PEMFC, DMFC, Developed 5 kW PEMFC stacks, 250 W
Chennai hydrogen DMFC Stack, PEM-based water and
generation methanol electrolyzers, fuel cell based
stationary applications such as UPS
IIT Bombay PEMFC, DMFC, PEMFC system development, catalysts for
IT-SOFC, PEMFC, working on HT-PEMFC and IT-
SOFC
IIT Delhi PEMFC, DAFC, Developed DEFC with power density of 70
hydrogen mW/sq.cm, electrode-catalysts, developed
generation, SOFC direct glucose fuel cells, non-PGM ORR
catalyst and micro fuel cell for MEMS,
anode materials for hydrogen generation
using PEM water electrolyzer, anode
material for direct hydrocarbon SOFC and
low temperature SOFC.
40 | P a g e

zation Area(s)
IIT Madras PEMFC, DMFC, Developed a DMFC with non- noble
SOFC cathode catalyst with 340 mA/sq.cm (0.6 V)
at 80 oC, non-PGM catalyst for PEMFC,
SOFC material research
NCL, Pune PEMFC Prepared thermally stable PBI membranes,
demonstrated a 350 W (15 cell) PBI-based
PEMFC stack
NMRL, DRDO, PAFC, PEMFC Developed and demonstrated 700-1000 W
Mumbai capacity PAFC-based UPS/generators. 1.2
kW PAFC system integrated in an electric
vehicle developed under DRDO-REVA
joint project, development work on PEMFC
and SOFC
BARC, Mumbai SOFC, PEMFC SOFC material and tubular SOFC under
development
IISc, Bangalore PAFC, DMFC, Developed PAFC with power density value
PEMFC of about 560 mW/sq.cm.
Mahindra Rise Hydrogen IC Developed hydrogen powered Alfa 3
engines wheeler vehicle, developing battery
powered electric hybrid vehicle
TATA Motors Fuel cell Developing a fuel cell based city bus,
technology for projects on using hydrogen blends as fuels.
transport TATA teleservices involved in
applications demonstration of fuel cell technology for
mobile tower backup power
Indian Oil Corp. Hydrogen Setup hydrogen dispensing stations, HCNG
Ltd infrastructure, usage in 3-wheeled vehicles and light duty
hydrogen for buses
transport sector
Reliance PEMFC for Joined the NMITLI project for indigenous
Industries Ltd. stationary PEMFC technology development as the
applications, industrial partner, established a fuel cell
SOFC R&D lab in Mumbai
REVA (Own by Fuel cell based Developed a car with NMRL with 1 kW
Mahindra Rise) small cars PAFC stack on board, involved in a similar
project with CFCT.
BHEL PAFC, PEMFC, Developed a 50 kW PAFC power plant,
SOFC developed 1 kW PEMFC modules and a 3
kW PEMFC power pack, partner institute in
the development of a 5 kW PEMFC system
under the NMITLI project
Nissan India PEMFC Working on membrane development for
technology for PEMFC technology, studying membrane
automobile degradation
applications
ACME Fuel cells for Joint venture with Ballard power systems
Telepower backup power Inc. and Ida-Tech to set up a high volume
41 | P a g e

zation Area(s)
low cost fuel cell systems for mobile tower
backup power
Eden Energy Hydrogen for Involved in production of hythane,
(India) Pvt. Ltd. transport sector agreement was signed with Ashok. Leyland
for the supply of hythane to be used in
natural gas powered buses
Gas Authority Hydrogen Main player for supply of suitable fuels,
of Infrastructure including hydrogen, natural gas, propane,
India Limited butane and methanol
Bloom Energy SOFC Working on testing and characterization of

(India) SOFC technology
Private Limited
Daimler Fuel cell for Setup an outsourcing R&D centre in

Research transport Bangalore, considering launching a
Center applications commercial fuel cell vehicle in India (Final
(DMRC), outcome of DMRC is not known to author)
Bangalore
Indian Space Application of 100 W PEMFC system is developed for

Research PEMFC powering automatic weather
Organization automatic weather station
station, PEMFC
use space station
and man mission
During the last 10 years, MNRE spent around Rs. 25 Crore on fuel cell research. CSIR also spent
around a similar amount during this period. In addition DST and DSIR contributed around Rs.5
Crore each for the similar purpose. DRDO has so far invested around Rs.50 Crore and plan to invest
another Rs. 100 Crore in near future. Exact amount spent by DAE is not available at this stage but
likely to be of the order of Rs.50 Crore during the last 10 years. Government of India is likely to
support the projects in three categories viz Mission Mode Projects, Research & Developmental
Projects and Research Projects . Based on the application potentiality as well as available expertise
in the country, the types of fuel cells identified for Indigenous development of the technology in
Mission Mode(Category I) are:
i. HT-PEMFC with combined cycle (Joint Lead Institutes: CSIR-NCL, Pune and CSIR-
CECRI, Karaikudi),
ii. LT- PEMFC (Lead Institutes: ARCI -CFCT, Chennai and/or CSIR-CECRI, Karaikudi/
BHEL R&D, Hyderabad),
iii. Planar SOFC (Lead Institute: CSIR-CGCRI, Kolkata)
iv. PAFC /for civilian applications only (Lead Institute NMRL, DRDO, Ambernath and/or
BHEL R&D, Hyderabad).
42 | P a g e
Stake holders of Hydrogen
Figure 17. Map showing institutions with major fuel cell activities in India
Table 13. Scientists working in the country at various institutions/ organizations/ companies in India
on fuel cells and their mail IDs
43 | P a g e
Name Affiliation Email details

Prof. Vivek Agarwal IIT Bombay agarwal@ee.iitb.ac.in
Dr. N. Rajalakshmi ARCI rajalakshmi@arci.res.in
CSIR-Central
Electrochemical Research
sheelaberchmans@yahoo.
Dr. Sheela Berchmans Institute, Electrodics and
com, sheelab@cecri.res.in
Electrocatalysis Division,
Karaikudi
Department of Chemistry, jayati_datta@rediffmail.c

Dr. Jayati Datta
IIEST, Shibpur om
Center for Applied Physics,

Dr. Avijit Ghosh Central University, avijitphy@gmail.com
Jharkhand
Prof. P. C. Ghosh IIT Bombay pcghosh@iitb.ac.in
Prof. K. P.
IIT Bombay karuna@me.iitb.ac.in
Karunakaran
Prof. S.Basu IIT Delhi sbasu@iitd.ac.in
Prof. S. Ramaprabhu IIT Madras ramp@iitm.ac.in
Prof. Kothandaraman IIT Madras rkraman@iitm.ac.in
Prof. Sreenivas
IIT Madras sjayanthi@iitm.ac.in
Jayanthi
Prof. Raghuram
IIT Madras raghuc@iitm.ac.in
Chetty
Prof. Raghunathan IIT Madras raghur@iitm.ac.in
Centre of Advanced Studies
in Chemistry, Panjab
Dr. Gurpreet Kaur gurpreet14@pu.ac.in
University, Chandigarh,
India
CSIR - Central Salt &

Dr. Vaibhav
Marine Chemicals Research vaibhavk@csmcri.res.in
Kulshrestha
Institute, Bhavnagar
CSIR-Central Glass &

Dr. Jayanta
Ceramic Research Institute, jayanta_mu@cgcri.res.in
Mukhopadhyay
Kolkata
Vijayamohanan K Pillai
Dr. Vijayamohanan K
Director, CSIR-CECRI, vijay@cecri.res.in
Pillai
Karaikudi
Dr. A. K. Tyagi BARC aktyagi@barc.gov.in
Prof. Debabrata deb @
IIT Kharagpur
Pradhan matsc.iitkgp.ernet.in
Prof. Shantonu Roy IIEST Shibpur shantonu20@gmail.com
44 | P a g e
Bioengineering and
Environmental Engineering
Dr. P N Sarma Centre, Indian Institute of sarma1950@yahoo.com
Chemical Technology,
Hyderabad
Chemistry Department,
Prof. R.N. Singh rnsbhu@rediffmail.com
Banaras Hindu University
sangeetha@annauniv.edu,
Dharmalingam S Anna university sangeetha_univ@yahoo.c
o.in
Department of Chemical
Janardhanan VM vj@ iith.ac. in
Engineering, IIT H
Indian Institute of
Dr. Anushree P Information Technology, anushri.khandal
Khandale Design and manufacturing, @iiitdm.ac.in
Chennai
Dr. Abhijit Das CSIR-Central Glass &

adassharma@cgcri.res.in
Sharma Ceramic Research Institute
Dr. Swapan Kumar Department of Chemistry, skbhattacharya@chemistr

Bhattacharya Jadavpur University y.jdvu.ac.in
Prof. Manoj Neergat IIT Bombay nmanoj@iitb.ac.in

CSIR-Central
Electrochemical Research
Dr. S. V. Selvaganesh Institute-Madras Unit, svsganesh.dr@gmail.com
CSIR Madras Complex,
Chennai
Dr. R.B. Mathur NPL rbmathur@nplindia.org
Department of Physics,
Prof. S. H. Pawar Shivaji university, pawar_s_h@yahoo.com
Kohlapur
Department of Applied
Dr. Sekhon SS Physics, Guru Nanak Dev sekhon_apd@yahoo.com
University, Amritsar
Dr. L. Cindrella NIT T cind@nitt.edu
maiyalagan.t@ktr.srmuni
Dr. T. Maiyalagan SRM
v.ac.in
Dr. R. N. Basu CGCRI rnbasu@cgcri.res.in
45 | P a g e
Indian Institute of Chemical

Dr. S. Sridhar s_sridhar@iict.res.in
Technology
anilverma@iitd.ac.in,
Prof. Anil Verma IIT Delhi anilverma@chemical.iitd.
ac.in
Prof. S.
IIT Bombay santanub@iitb.ac.in
Bandyopadhyay
Dr. S. R. Bharadwaj BARC shyamala@barc.gov.in
Dr. N. M. Gokhale NMRL
Prof. M. S. Hedge IISc mshegde@iisc.ac.in
Scientists working in Membrane development for PEMFC
Figure 18. Institutions and organizations in the country working on membrane development
46 | P a g e
Table 14. Scientists in India working on membrane for fuel cells
Scientist Affiliation
Dr. V. K. Shahi Central Salt and marine
Research laboratory,
Bhavnagar
Prof. P. Maiti IIT BHU
Prof. P. P. Kundu IIT Roorkee
Prof. Ramesh Prabhu Manimuthu Alagappa University
Dr. G. Arthanareeswaran NIT Trichy
Dr. A. A. Khan IICT

Dr. U. K. Kharul NCL, Pune
Dr. Vijaymohanan Pillai CECRI/NCL
Dr. Sujit K Ghosh ISER, Pune

Prof. Veena Choudhary IIT Delhi
Dr. G. M. Shashidhara Jayachandra College of Engg,

Mysore
Dr. Santhosh Kumar Bhat CECRI
Dr. Sahu CECRI

Prof. Susy Varughese, IIT Madras
Prof. A Deshpande
Prof. Yuvraj Singh Negi IIT Roorkee
Prof. Verghese Deshpande IIT Madras
Dr. M.Patri, Dr. Swati Rao NMRL

Dr. S. Mondal Department of Polymer Science,
and A.K. Banthia Bundelkhand University, Jhansi
and Materials Science Center,
Indian Institute of Technology
Kharagpur
47 | P a g e
Table 15. Scientists working in catalysts development in India
Name Affiliation
Prof. B.Viswanathan, Prof. S.
Ramaprabhu, Prof. Prathap haridoss, Prof.
IIT Madras
Ranga Rao Kothandaraman, Prof.
Raghuram Chetty
Prof. S. Basu IIT Delhi
Prof. Manoj Neergat, Prof. P. C Ghosh IIT Bombay
Prof. Vijaymohanan Pillai NCL, CECRI

Prof. Kundu IIT Roorkee
PSGTECH,
Dr. Manoj Karthikeyan
Coimbatore
IISER,
Dr. Shaijumon
Trivandrum
JNCASR,
Dr. Peter Sebastian
Bengaluru
Figure 19. List of major institutes in India working on catalyst development and fuel cells
48 | P a g e
6. Utilisation – Others
Currently, there are around 11,200 hydrogen powered cars, 20,000 forklifts operating on
hydrogen, 381 hydrogen refuelling stations worldwide3.
Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources have supported many demonstration projects

through Indian Oil Corporation and Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers. The first
demonstration project was for setting up a dispensing station by the Indian Oil Corporation. The
dispensing station at their R & D centre Faridabad, has been commissioned during 2008-09 and
has an electrolyser with 5 Nm3/hr hydrogen production capacity (about 11 kg/day). Hydrogen
produced from the electrolyser is being blended with CNG for use in demonstration and test
vehicles. The project is dedicated to acquire working experience in handling hydrogen for use in
vehicles and also provide field performance feedback on hydrogen-CNG blends as a fuel in
automobiles.
The other demonstration project is being implemented by the Society of Indian Automobile
Manufacturers (SIAM) in association with five automobile manufacturers (Tata Motors, Ashok
Leyland, Eicher Motors, Mahindra and Mahindra and Bajaj Auto) and Indian Oil Corporation
was towards demonstrating the use of hydrogen blend with CNG in automobiles. Three buses,
two cars and two three wheelers were part of the project and were used for field trials based on
18% hydrogen (by volume) blended with CNG. The project involves modifications in engine and
fuel injection system. Existing hydrogen-CNG dispensing station set up by India Oil Corporation
at Faridabad is being used for filling hydrogen-CNG blends in the test vehicles. The project
helped in optimization of engine performance and blend ratio of hydrogen with CNG. The criteria
for optimization would be the best efficiency and lowest NOx. Hydrogen up to 20% (by volume)
can be blended with compressed natural gas (CNG) for use as an automotive fuel.
Many RD&D efforts made in the area of hydrogen energy, laboratory level prototypes of
hydrogen fuelled motorcycles, three wheelers, engine-generator sets, and water/methanol
electrolysers for hydrogen production have been developed, their pictures are shown in Figures
20 -25. About 15 hydrogen fuelled motorcycles are being demonstrated in the campus of Banaras
Hindu University, Varanasi. There are many development and demonstration activities are being
taken up to develop and improve hydrogen fuelled vehicles and small generators. It is envisaged
that in about a decade time, near commercial models may be available for extended
demonstration of hydrogen use in automobiles. Small power generating systems are also likely
to be ready by that time.
Some of the major work in the country in hydrogen utilisation which has been demonstrated is
mentioned in the figures 20-25. Metal hydrides-based hydrogen storage reactors have been
developed for various applications like hydrogen compression, purification, thermal energy
storage, heating and cooling applications at IIT Guwahati, their pictures are included in figures
26-29. Reactors with metal hydride-based hydrogen storage for back up power applications of
capacity 1.5 kWh and 10 k Wh have been developed at IIT Bombay, different exchanger designs
have been simulated, optimized and used for such reactor fabrications, shown in figure 30.
Demonstration of PEMFC systems of 3kW and 5 kW has been done at ARCITECH, GAIL, ESCI
and Neyveli lignite corporation by ARCI-CFCT, pictures of the same are shown in figures 31
and 32. Integration and demonstration of fuel cell and battery-based vehicles for two, three and
four wheelers have been carried out by ARCI, pictures of those is shown in figure 33.
49 | P a g e
Figure 20. Hydrogen fuelled 3-wheeler Figure 21. Total hydrogen S.I. engine genset
developed jointly by IIT Delhi and using electronic fuel injection system
Mahindra & Mahindra in New Delhi
Figure 22. Hydrogen fuelled diesel Figure 23. Hydrogen fuelled three wheelers
Engine developed at IIT Delhi in Auto Expo 2012
Figure 24. Five Hydrogen Fuelled two

Figure 25. Hydrogen fuelled three
Wheelers developed at Physics Dept.,
wheeler developed at Physics Dept.,
BHU
BHU
50 | P a g e
Figure 26. Metal hydride based hydrogen storage system with 4000 liters of hydrogen
storage (at STP) capacity developed at IIT Guwahati
Figure 27. Prototype reactor with 55 embedded cooling tubes filled with 4 kg MmNi4.7Fe0.3
alloy capable of an average 1.5 kW cooling capacity developed at IIT Guwahati
Figure 28. Metal hydride based hydrogen purification system of 1 kg H2 (99.99% purity)
developed at IIT Guwahati
51 | P a g e
Continuous Purification Test
Online Sample Collection Testing of Sample Purity
Successfully Delivered MHHPS at NTPC with Purification Capacity

of 6500 lit. H per Cycle
2
MHHPS at NTPC was field tested with Prototype model with capacity
of 650 lit. H per Cycle
2
Purification Result by Our System
Figure 29. Metal hydride hydrogen purification system testing at NTPC (NETRA)
Figure 30. Metal hydride based reactors designed for backup power application with
capacity 1.5 kWh and 10kWh resp. developed at IIT Bombay
th
3 kW , ARCITECH 2017, 27 Feb 2017, Hyderabad 5 kW @ GAIL, Noida March 15th 2017 3 kW , ESCI, 10th March 2017, Hyderabad
Figure
Figure 31. Demonstration of PEMFC system of 3 kW and 5 kW
52 | P a g e
Figure 32. Demonstration of PEMFC system at Neyveli Lignite Corporation in year 2016
Figure 33. Fuel Cell (+ Battery) powered automobiles developed at ARCI
53 | P a g e
Table 16. Major activities in hydrogen utilisation other than for fuel cell based applications
S. Project Name Institution

No.
1 Development and demonstration of hydrogen fuelled BHU, Varanasi
three wheelers, three wheelers running on hydrogen
fuelled IC engine using alloy hydride / inter metallic
for hydrogen storage, hydrogen based catalytic
combustion cooker
2 Development and demonstration of diesel hydrogen Mahindra &
dual fuel SUV Mahindra,
Chengalpattu
3 Mission mode project on development and IIT Delhi
demonstration of hydrogen fuelled internal
combustion engine for vehicles, multi cylinder IC
engine introduced into Mahindra’s tourist or model
mini bus, three wheelers based on hydrogen with
Mahindra and Mahindra, development &
demonstration of hydrogen fuelled multi-cylinder
spark ignition engine generator set for stationary
power generation, demonstration and field trials of
hydrogen fuelled three wheelers in New Delhi
4 Performance enhancement, evaluation and analysis of UPES, Dehradun
an IDI diesel engine using straight (SVO) with
hydrogen supplementation
5 Hydrogen refuelling facility for demonstration of fuel R&D Centre, IOCL,
cell vehicles Faridabad
6 Experimental investigations on combustion IIT Kanpur
characteristics and emission reduction of laser fired
hydrogen engine, experimental study of bluff-body
stabilized LPG–H2 jet diffusion flame with preheated
reactant
7 HCNG fuelled bus demonstration in selected city bus IOCL Faridabad
fleet
8 Design and development of hydrogen gas burner for IIT Kanpur
industrial application
11 Metal hydride based thermal energy storage systems IIT Madras
12 Metal hydride-based devices for various applications IIT Guwahati
like thermal energy storage, hydrogen purification,
hydrogen compression, heating and cooling systems
and heat up gradation systems.
13 Metal hydride based systems for backup power IIT Bombay
54 | P a g e
S. Project Name Institution

No.
14 Prototype demonstration of wind hydrogen based Electrical Research
stand-alone electrical generation and Development
Association
(ERDA), Vadodara
15 Utilisation of hydrogen for lifting the weather balloons Indian
used to collect atmospheric data Meteorological
Department (IMD),
Thiruvananthapuram
Table 17. List of scientists in the country working on different aspects of hydrogen utilisation

BHU, Varanasi Prof. O. N. Srivastava ons@bhu.ac.in
Mahindra & Mahindra, Dr. Abraham Matthew
Chengalpattu
IIT Delhi Prof. L. M. Das lmdas@ces.iitd.ac.in
IIT Kanpur Dr. D. E. Mishra mishra@iitk.ac.in
Electrical Research and Dr. V. Shrinet shrinet@erda.org
Development Association
(ERDA), Vadodara
IIT Delhi Dr. Divesh Bhatia dbhatia@chemical.iitd.ac.in
NISE, Gurugram Dr. S. K. Singh sk.singh.mnre@nic.in
IIT Hyderabad Dr. Ch. Subrahmanyam csubbu@iith.ac.in
Institute of Minerals & Dr. Bikas Kumar Jena bikash@immt.res.in
Materials Technology
Bhubaneswar
IIT Madras Dr. Raghuram Chetty raghuc@iitm.ac.in
IIT Bombay Prof. Pratibha Sharma pratibha_sharma@iitb.ac.in
IIT Guwahati Prof. P. Muthukumar pmkumar@iitg.ac.in
IIT Delhi Dr. K.A. Subramanian subra@ces.iitd.ac.in
VSSC Dr. M. Shaneeth m_shaneeth@vssc.gov.in
IIT Delhi Prof. S. Basu sbasu@iitd.ac.in
NPL, CSIR Dr. Sundeep Kumar Dhawan skdhawan@nplindia.org
IIT Madras (ARCI) Dr. N. Rajalakshmi rajalakshmi@arci.res.in
IIT Bombay Dr. Prakash C. Ghosh pcghosh@iitb.ac.in
IISER, Tirupati Dr. Vijayamohanan K Pillai vijay@cecri.res.in
BHEL, Hyderabad Dr. Vasu Gollangi vasugollangi@bhel.in
CSIR-CERI- Madras Dr. Santoshkumar D Bhat sdbhat@cecri.res.in
CSIR-CGCRI, Kolkata Dr. Rajendra Nath Basu rnbasu@cgcri.res.in
55 | P a g e

C-MET Dr. Girish J. Phatak gjp@cmet.gov.in
IIT Madras Dr. Sreenivas Jayanti sjayanti@iitm.ac.in
ICT Mumbai Dr. Neetu Jha nr.jha@ictmumbai.edu.in
UPES, Dehradun Dr. Venkateswarlu Chintala vchintala@ddn.upes.ac.in
UPES, Dehradun Narayan Khatri
IIT Kanpur Prof. Avinash K Agarwal akag@iitk.ac.in
The biggest challenge towards commercialization of the hydrogen-based technologies is the

requirement of code and standards to get a sort of consistency and encourage deployment. With
such standards in place the process of deployment will drastically increase and technologies which
are at laboratory demonstration level could come to marketplace faster. ISO and IEC standards
once finalized will help in dealing with hydrogen vehicles in particular and help in progress of
hydrogen economy in a smoother way.
In order to increase the use hydrogen technology for even industrial sector there is requirement of
certain standards which is fixed by specific agencies. The Technical Committee of International
Organization for Standards (ISO) is ISO TC 197 which deals with the standards of hydrogen such
as its use, measurement, storage, transport and production. India is its member and the committee
has published 16 standards. To ensure the security and safety of the public and property from
explosion and fire, the Petroleum Explosives Safety organization (PESCO) has been administering
Explosives Act, 1884, 2008, Gas cylinder Rules, 2004, Static and Mobile Pressures Vessels
(Unfired) rules 1981 and other concerned acts.
India’s nodal policy making think-tank, NITI Aayog has also recommended the use of H-CNG by
utilisation of the existing piped-gas infrastructure in Delhi. The further recommendations include
the use of H-CNG be notified as an automotive fuel, standards for its use can be issued by the
Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), and clearance for H-CNG storage cylinders on vehicles be
issued by the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO)13.
As per the recommendations of the Steering Committee on Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cells
constituted by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the Central Motor Vehicle Rules,
1989, will have to be amended to include hydrogen as an automotive fuel. The Gas Cylinder Rules,
2004, will also require amendments to incorporate standards and regulations pertaining to
hydrogen storage cylinders. It is also essential that certification guidelines and regulations are
issued by PESO with regard to hydrogen storage equipment and refuelling systems in order to
ensure safety. The BIS will also be required to issue standards for quality of hydrogen as per
standards notified by International Organization of Standards. Further, as India is developing fuel
cell buses, the Ministry of Road, Transport, and Highways will also be required to devise a
licensing and permit framework for such buses3.
India is participating in various committees of international standard making bodies such as ISO,
UN-ECE. These committees are developing global standards for hydrogen which could be adapted
in the future by India. In Parallel, the BIS committee on hydrogen standards is working towards
developing the Indian Standards by adapting the International Standards with modifications for
India specific conditions. There are several lead companies in hydrogen production, storage,
distribution and utilisation a summary of those is included in Table 18. A brief review of year wise
achievements and major milestones reached is included in figure 34.
56 | P a g e
Table 18. List of companies involved in hydrogen production or storage or delivery in the country
S. Companies and description

No
.
Praxair is one of the leading producer and supplier of the different industrial, medical,
and specialty gases. They supply compressed and liquid hydrogen at the desired purities
and concentrations. The company has maintained sophisticated hydrogen pipelines in
1
various geographical locations across the globe. The company have plants of sizes ranging
from 10 Nm3H2 to 150,000 Nm3H2. The Praxair India is known for its ability to deliver
safe, reliable, efficient gas supplies and services to meet the local industrial demand.
https://www.praxair.com/gases/buy-compressed-hydrogen-gas-or-liquid-hydrogen
Linde India Limited, which was formerly known as BOC India Limited, is a member of
The Linde Group and the leading industrial gases company in India.
Linde Hydrogen FuelTech provides highly efficient fueling concepts according to the
requirement. Linde has provided more than 160 refuelling stations globally. Linde
provides on-site generation solution and both the options including gaseous and liquid
hydrogen. They also provide compressors for pressurization through ionic compressors
2 and cryo-pumps.
Linde’s operates the India’s largest air separation plant and run more than 20 production
facilities and filling stations across the country. The company supplies more than 20,000
gases and mixtures as well as provide a range of related services including the
construction and installation of plants, equipment, pipelines and associated engineering
services catering to the needs of a wide variety of industries. Linde India has the largest
sales and distribution network.
https://www.linde-engineering.com/en/process-
plants/hydrogen_and_synthesis_gas_plants/ gas_products/hydrogen/
Inox Air Products provides industrial gas solutions. The company provides gaseous
hydrogen being stored in “bumpstop”, which are large number of high pressure cylinders
3 manifolded (connected) together. They also provide on site generation systems including
membranes, packaged plants, air separation units, syngas and hydrogen plants and
industrial gas pipelines
http://www.inoxairproducts.com/prism/
57 | P a g e

No
.
4
Bhoruka is into hydrogen production mostly via electrolysis
bhurukagases.com
Air Liquide is contributing to the widespread adoption of hydrogen in the transportation

5 sector by supporting the deployment of charging stations that are required worldwide.
Presence of Air Liquide in India is since the year 1992. Today, Air Liquide has steady
increased its footprint in the country, relying on 600 employees to serve over 550
industrial and 2,500 hospital customers.
https://www.airliquide.com/india
Aditya Birla Chemicals represents a flagship sector of the Aditya Birla Group that spans
across chemicals, agri-business, insulators and fashion yarns. It is a leading global
supplier of caustic, epoxy, phosphates, sulphites, peroxides and viscose filament yarns.
It is also India’s leading producer of fluorides, fertilisers, soil and crop nutrition and
6
protection products and the largest in Chlor-alkali and Insulators in India. Today, the
Aditya Birla Chemicals is spread across India, Thailand and Germany with 20
manufacturing locations, reaching to customers from more than 80 countries. ABCIL
supplies high purity compressed hydrogen at 150 to 200 bar pressure in manifolds and
loose hydrogen cylinders to customers. It finds use in a wide range of industries including
food, petroleum products, chemical processing and home and personal care.
https://www.adityabirlachemicals.com/about-us.php
7 Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Limited are the manufactures of chlor-alkalies and other
chemicals. The Company's products include caustic soda, hydrochloric acid, phosphoric
acid, potassium carbonate, hydrogen peroxide, chlorine gas and hydrogen gas. Gujarat
58 | P a g e

No
.
Alkalies and Chemicals also manufactures chloromethanes, caustic flakes, sodium
cyanide and sodium ferrocyanide. They are into the production of hydrogen in the
process of making these chemicals
https://www.gacl.com/upload_files/hydrogen_gas.pdf
DCW Limited (DCW) is an India-based chemical company, which is engaged in the

manufacture of caustic soda, soda ash and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) resin. The
Company's segments include PVC, caustic, Synthetic Iron Oxide Pigment (SIOP), Soda
8 Ash and Others. Its products include caustic soda, liquid chlorine, hydrochloric acid,
beneficiated ilmenite, trichloroethylene, yellow iron oxide, ferric chloride, utox, PVC,
soda ash, sodium bicarbonate and ammonium bicarbonate. Through its SIOP division,
DCW also operates in the specialty chemical segment. The Company produces calcium
chloride at its SIOP Plant. It also runs a 36-megawatts (MW) furnace oil based captive
power plant and a 58.3MW coal based Cogeneration Plant.
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2007/12/24/9088886/india-s-dcw-
restarts-expanded-chlor-alkali-plant/
GHCL (formerly known as Gujarat Heavy Chemicals Ltd) is a Dalmia group company,
and one of the leading soda ash manufacturers in India. The company is engaged in
9 manufacturing of industrial chemicals, textiles and Edible salt. In addition to domestic
sales, GHCL exports to Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE, Jordan, Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and Australia.
https://www.dsij.in/productattachment/BrokerRecommendation/GHCL_BUY_HDFC_
08.03.16.pdf
10 Air Science Technologies is into designing and building the biogas upgrading systems
and equipment for bio-digesters and landfill gas applications. Biogas purification and
upgrading biogas, a combination of methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2) and impurities
is a gaseous fuel but also a green-house gas (GHG). As a gaseous fuel, biogas must be
59 | P a g e

No
.
purified before being valorised through the production of electricity or of compressed
natural gas (CNG). It is then referred to as Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) or Bio-
methane and the biogas purification process referred to as biogas upgrading.
For more than 90 years, SAGIM is specialized in the manufacturing of hydrogen

11 production units and has become the leadership in the hydrogen production for
meteorological uses. SAGIM is actually present in more than 90 countries all over the
world and has already supplied more than 500 upper air stations
https://www.hmei.org/company-details/?company_id=1519
Air Products (NYSE:APD) is a world-leading industrial fases company in operation

12 for nearly 80 years. The Company provides industrial gases and related equipment to
dozens of industries, including refining, chemical, metals, electronics, manufacturing,
and food and beverage.
https://www.gasworld.com/air-products-opens-indias-first-hydrogen-station/2007574
Fuel Cell Energy delivers efficient, affordable and clean solutions for the supply,
recovery and storage of energy. The company design, manufacture, undertake project
development, install, operate and maintain megawatt-scale fuel cell systems, serving
13 utilities, industrial and large municipal power users with solutions that include both
utility-scale and on-site power generation, carbon capture, local hydrogen production
for transportation and industry, and long duration energy storage
https://www.glassdoor.co.in/Overview/Working-at-FuelCell-Energy-
EI_IE4825.11,26.html
14 The company develops hydrogen sensing tools. The products like HY-OPTIMA
process hydrogen analyzers and HY-ALERTA hydrogen leak detectors standalone
product lines have been used in over 50 countries helping utilities, nuclear power plants,
petroleum, fuel cells, industrial hydrogen and petrochemical companies, and other
60 | P a g e

No
.
industrial organizations meet safety, regulatory, and process control requirements when
doing critical hydrogen monitoring - often in diverse and challenging environments.
The developed industry-leading hydrogen analyzers and leak detectors are based on the
company’s patented, solid-state core hydrogen sensor technology exclusively licensed
from the U.S. Department of Energy and supported by 15 years of R&D and field
verification work.
Idroenergy designs, realizes and installs plants and systems for the hydrogen and
nitrogen on-site production of ultra-high purity gas. The company is into realization of
turn key plants through all the steps of design, purchasing, production, installation,
test, start-up, operators training and after-sale service.
ITM Power manufactures integrated hydrogen energy solutions to enhance the

utilisation of renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted. ITM Power Plc designs
and manufactures products which generate hydrogen gas, based on Proton Exchange
15 Membrane (PEM) technology. This technology only uses electricity (renewable) and
tap water to generate hydrogen gas on-site and has a product offering capable of being
scaled to 100MW+ in size. The company has capability to (i) to provide a fully
integrated system, (ii) ability of the system to respond rapidly to varying power profiles,
and (iii) to generate hydrogen at a pressure, flow rate and purity appropriate to its
application.
Heliocentris Academia International GmbH are into developing educational products

for teaching hydrogen and fuel cells. The company has capability to develop full
16 portfolio of products, covering solutions for schools, colleges, universities and
professional industrial training centers. Since February 2017 Heliocentris Academia
became a part of Horizon Educational Group and is nowadays leveraging on a
worldwide network of partners specialized in advisory of education and technical
training solutions.
The company has been working with the thermal, nuclear and gas power plant
17
Companies for their requirement of aftersales and service of hydrogen gas generation
plant and spare parts used for various applications in their plant.
61 | P a g e
Figure 34. A short summary of achievements and major milestones achieved
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7. Way Forward…….
Hydrogen has very clear-cut advantages as against the conventional fuels and a potential for
decarbonisation of several sectors. Both hydrogen as fuel and hydrogen-based technologies are
receiving unpresidential attention globally and thus the coming decade will be very important. The
next decade will see scaling up of several high TRL level technologies to meet the required
potentials and enhanced deployment. Government has a key role to play in this stage of
development. The progress seen in the country like in the case of solar PV deployment with public
private partnerships and policy support will be required for hydrogen as well.
Hydrogen has altogether separate domain of applications as against the other low carbon
technologies. The need is to identify the domain of applications where hydrogen is the solution or
hydrogen is the “only” possible solution. One emerging area being transportation sector, since India
heavily depends on imports and transportation sector is major consumer of oil, thus hydrogen can
play a crucial role. But the domain in transportation sector where hydrogen fuelled vehicles can be
best suited is long haul, heavy transport and commercial fleets. Besides these long-haul vehicles
require higher quantity of storage as these are driven over long distances and continuously for long
times and these should be refuelled quickly. Hydrogen powered vehicles have similar range as the
current fossil fuel-based vehicles, can be refuelled fast, have efficient fleet optimisation and have
much higher energy density. The another set of application is in materials handling e.g. forklifts
where the time available for refuelling for a unit is very short and the space available for refuelling
infrastructure in warehouses is small i.e. they can’t afford long charging hours. In some of the
industries which have higher emissions use of certain fraction of hydrogen in their value chain will
substantially bring down the emissions. Further, power to X provides wide flexibility in terms of
usage, storage and transport of useful energy and finds wide range of applications. Thus, hydrogen
has the potential to become the backbone of low emission energy production, storage, distribution
and its utilisation for transport, industrial, heating and many other sectors. With the growing
deployment of renewables this can be effective storage medium with mid to long-term and small to
large-scale storage without much of losses and easily scalable. The technologies or systems or
operations where hydrogen is used shows better performance and efficiencies.
An interesting route and use of hydrogen is combining hydrogen with the captured CO2 from
sequestration plants to produce a variety of hydrocarbons like methane, methanol, synthetic petro-
chemicals or transport fuel. Energy can be exported from countries where rich renewable based
generation is prevalent to the energy deficit countries, with hydrogen as the carrier. Another
important use could be to substitute natural gas in process heat application providing higher energy
density and no emissions. However, for this retrofitting of the industrial boilers and components
for combustion will be required, several such projects are being discussed one of such big project is
H21 project in UK, where the entire Northern Gas Network is planned convert on to hydrogen. In
the short term, hydrogen can be introduced in various sectors and technologies deployed, this can
be irrespective of whether it is blue or green or grey hydrogen. In the intermediate term blending of
gas with hydrogen could be a possible method to reduce emissions and at the same time making
hydrogen a part of large-scale distribution network, increased usage of green hydrogen should be
introduced. In long term the entire hydrogen value chain should be completely emission free.
Thus, hydrogen has a potential to contribute towards decarbonised, sustainable, secure energy
future. The need is to introduce it into both existing proven set of applications with more diverse set
of energy sources of its production and then move on to green hydrogen or introduce it to the new
set of applications. The transition pathways which make use of exiting infrastructure and skills will
be both economically feasible and easier to adapt e.g. use of blended natural gas with hydrogen, use
63 | P a g e
of CCUS for hydrogen production, use of certain percentage of hydrogen without much of
retrofitting where there is need to reduce emissions. The immediate need here is to identify the key
long-term goals and the step to achieve those goals.
The current status is that the clean hydrogen technologies are available, costs are coming down,
efficiency and performance are improving. The requirement is to demonstrate the scaled version at
a faster rate, this will build a confidence in investors and will receive public acceptance. Further the
building up of policies, infrastructure and skills will help in wider acceptance, reducing perceived
risks, enhancing confidence, increased investments, lowering costs.
Government can play a very crucial role with policy support by creating infrastructure, risk
reduction, creating hydrogen market and providing benefits over use of low carbon energy chain.
Once the take-off is achieved, the rest cost reduction and increased proliferation could be achieved
by economies of scale. There can be clear cut targets for e.g. emission reduction norms and
regulations for various sectors which will further create demand. Although taking a technology
neutral approach and leaving to the market could be the most tempting choice but that may not allow
for the sustainable interest seen in hydrogen, a strong public-private support with policies in place
will be required. Thus, the major challenges we need to finally meet is scaling up, cost reduction,
increased adoption and sustainable growth of hydrogen-based technologies. The role that
Government can play is towards creating a long term policy framework which could build up
confidence in private investment, create market demand with policy interventions, develop
standards and regulations which should not hurdle the growth, provide enhanced R & D support.
Some key points, which need consideration are listed below:
• Currently most of the hydrogen being produced is from fossil fuels. In short to medium term
CCS to be employed to reduce emissions at production site. In long term green hydrogen
production will be the solution. Besides biomass-based hydrogen production have the potential
and need to be explored towards making it economically feasible and sustainable.
• After the implementation of Euro VI, cost of diesel engines is increasing, this provides a
window for the penetration of alternative technologies such as FCEVs in the market.
Implementation of FCEVs in public transport has proven to be successful in many places such
as Vancouver, California, and Japan. However, the need of the hour is to introduce hybrid
systems as a first step in order to create a demand for FC accessories. Eventually, as the
technology matures, the FC based systems will phase out the hybrids. Introducing FCs in
railways and trucks could also be an economically feasible solution as the implementation of
hydrogen-based mobility is economically more viable as compared to electrification of
railways. Also, subsidies should be introduced from the consumer side to generate interest in
the consumption of hydrogen-based energy solutions instead of providing subsidies to the
manufacturers.
• The shipping and aviation sectors have very limited low carbon fuel options, these are the
sectors where hydrogen has the major opportunity to venture in. Hydrogen in pure form may
not be the best possible solution. Hydrogen or ammonia could be possible solution for shipping
while biofuels and other synthetic fuels i.e. power to liquid option of hydrogen could be the
choice. These areas should be thought of as the next generation of applications.
• Economies of scale whether for electrolysers, fuel cells, components of refuelling stations,
storage tanks will definitely bring down cost and thus mass manufacturing will be required.
Other than the economies of scale R & D could help in both cost reduction and enhanced
performance.
64 | P a g e
• The long-term goals and the barriers towards achieving those need to be identified. A concrete
step by step path towards achieving those goals need to be figured out.
• A complete system for information dissemination, availability of the data whether related to
hydrogen production, storage, transport or utilisation should be made available in public
domain.
• The need of the time is policy support, help in demand creation, reduction in associated risk of
the investors, standards and regulations in place, R & D support, creating public awareness and
projection of all the data to create a confidence in hydrogen and hydrogen-based technologies.
Some of the recommendations for the Department of Science and Technology and other funding
agencies are as follows:
• Major R&D programmes should be introduced linking with applications which may have
market acceptance. For this, large number of demonstrative projects should be supported by
DST in production, storage and application areas in addition to usual development projects.
• Demonstration projects for evaluation of long-term performance, safety aspects, identifying
functional losses and finding diagnostic of fuel cell stacks should be taken up. This will help in
confidence building in industry as well as end users
• Sufficient centralized facilities should be made available for long term performance evaluation
of fuel cell stacks which could be open to both R&D and industry.
• Fast pace research is required in various fields and converting the know- how into pilot scale.
• Demonstration of hydrogen for grid integration can be pivotal in getting visibility and
acceptance. At the same time the adoption should be considering all the standards and protocols
with safety being of prime importance.
• DST may organize funding support for projects as part of a well-drawn Hydrogen Business
Road Map. This will involve a definite target of an end application such as vehicle /steel
industry / thermal management. Project related to production/ storage/transport to achieve the
specific road map should be supported on a time bound basis. This should involve multi
agencies from R&D and Industry.
• Steel industry is trying to reduce CO2emission by partial introduction of hydrogen as fuel,
however currently faces gaps in the process due to lack of consistent R&D support (e.g. Tata
Steel). Non-availability of required quantity of hydrogen of right specifications is one of the
road blocks. Absence of continuous R&D support related to stepwise implementation of the
process of reduction of CO2 from blast furnace is another block. Projects of such nature
involving technology demonstration should be supported so that visible output may be obtained.
• Demonstration projects for reduction of CO2 from steel and cement industry will go a long way
in popularizing the use of hydrogen and associated technologies. However, on reduced scale,
it is also recommended that projects on using large vehicles like buses and trucks in selected
locations in the country can be framed under R&D-industry collaboration and run as
demonstration.
• R&D efforts should concentrate on ensuring development of consistent supply chain for
hydrogen and appropriate storage systems for demonstration projects. Start-ups could be
supported in this attempt.
• It is important to promote the currently practiced methods of production of hydrogen systems
with required refinement for clean fuel. Simultaneously R&D projects need to be supported for
alternate methods with clear targets and energy efficiency. Greener processes which are now
considered expensive like photo electro chemical/SOEC should be supported with clear
mandate for innovative approach for higher efficiency and lower cost.
65 | P a g e
• Filling stations and associated systems as well as safety are real gaps in the country. Demo
projects related to filling systems with all long-term performance assurance as well as safety
parameters need to be given sufficient support.
• Different storage systems are another key area which requires lot of R&D. In the development
of pressure cylinders, many parts need to be indigenised. Start-ups could be supported to fill
such requirements.
• Solid state systems like hydrides, porous media and liquid carrier should be further looked into,
as they have advantages of safety, higher volumetric densities and optimum conditions of
operation. The storage device is selected based on the requirements of the end application, and
therefore various types of storage systems, performance efficiency and safety need to be as per
specific standards. Such standards are required to be in place for our country.
• A general awareness drive on the advantages, possibilities and safety aspects of hydrogen usage
in a variety of application areas currently covered by carbon-based fuels need to be undertaken
along with demonstration projects. This could be done involving social scientists, R&D
personnel, industry and NGOs.
• Periodic meetings involving experts from industry, academia and funding agencies are required.
Discussions on the gap areas and increased R&D-Industry interaction is essential.
• In order to generate competitive interest among the stake holders, programmes like awards/
appreciation could be thought of for the best R&D-industry collaboration which bring out
successful implementation of target oriented, total quality-controlled supply chain, from
production to end use application including long term safe performance.
• The concept of H2 production, storage, and its applications need to be done altogether. The
facilities required are scattered in the country which needs to be centralized and open to all the
research community. Strengthening of the existing technologies and promoting of the new
materials-based research is required.
• Generation of hydrogen from renewable sources should be encouraged. Government should
explore policies for subsiding hydrogen price generated from renewable.
• Investment on methanol economy is rising, thus hydrogen production from methanol should be
given due consideration
• Currently the Type IV cylinders are not indigenously fabricated. However, there are groups
working on the development, they should be supported. Besides, there should be a centralized
test facility for high pressure testing of these developed cylinders.
• Our educational institutions and public sector should work towards developing awareness
which is very essential for social acceptance by the customers.
• There should be linkages between academia and industry and the DST and MNRE can play a
key role in achieving that.
• There is a sort of chicken and egg situation in the country i.e. for deployment infrastructure is
required while to develop infrastructure demand is necessary. With government support this
need to be resolve. Both refuelling stations and increase in FCEVs should be supported. The
focus should be developing fuel cell technology and demonstrating for transport and heavy
vehicles and slowly decarbonising other sectors as well.
• There is a pressing need of big projects in a business scale for e.g. Australia has launched H2
business road map. DST should think about it in a business scale. At the same time large scale
hydrogen production and cost reduction should be considered. Examples should be sought from
success in this field for e.g. China converting coal to H2, Australia investing in fuel cell for
railway and heavy transport.
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References:
1. International Energy Agency report on “India 2020 Energy Policy Review”.
2. National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap (2006) by Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, India.
3. International Energy Agency report on “The future of hydrogen – Seizing today’s opportunities”
4. Allied Market research report on “India Hydrogen Market – Opportunity Analysis and Industry
Forecast, 2018-2025”
5. The Hydrogen Economy opportunities and challenges, book edited by Michael Ball and Martin
Wietschel, Cambridge university Press, 2009.
6. E. Rivard, M. Trudeau, K. Zaghib, Materials 12(2019) 1973.
7. Strategic Analysis report on “Hydrogen storage system cost Analysis” August 2017 by C.
Houchins and B. D. James.
8. N. Sirosh. Hydrogen composite tank program, Proceedings of 2002 U.S. DOE Hydorgen Program
Review, Golden, CO, USA, 6-10 May 2002
9. Petitpas, G.; Simon, A.J. Liquid Hydrogen Infrastructure Analysis; Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory: Livermore, CA, USA, 2017
10. Meneghelli, B.; Tamburello, D.; Fesmire, J.; Swanger, A. Integrated Insulation System for
Automotive Cryogenic; U.S. DOE Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program, 2017
11. K. Kunze, K. Oliver, Cryo-compressed hydrogen storage, BMW group, Munich, Germany 2012
12. Action Plan on Clean Fuels, NITI Aayog and Confederation of Indian Industry, 2018
13. H2 Taranki Roadmap- A Tapuae Roa project report
67 | P a g e
Glossary of Abbreviations
DDUGJY Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana
MNRE Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
MoP Ministry of Power
MoPNG Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas
MoC Ministry of Coal
DAE Department of Atomic Energy
MoST Ministry of Science and Technology
DST Department of Science and Technology
DBT Department of Biotechnology
DSIR Department of Scientific and Industrial Research
DAE Department of Atomic Energy
MoC Ministry of Coal
MoES Ministry of Earth Science
MoHI Ministry of Heavy Industries
MNRE Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
NHERM National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap
GIFT Green Initiative for Future Transport
GIP Green Initiative for Power Generation
MI Mission Innovation
IC Innovation Challenge
SIAM Society of Indian Automobile
BARC Bhabha Atomic Research Centre
ISO International Organization for Standardization
IEC International Electrotechnical Commission
PESO Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation
IMD Indian Meteorological Department
ONGC Oil and Natural Gas Corporation
IOCL Indian Oil Corporation Limited
IIT Indian Institute of Technology
IISc Indian Institute of Science
CSIR Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
NEERI National Environmental Engineering Research Institute
UPES University of Petroleum and Energy Studies
IICT Indian Institute of Chemical Technology
C-MET Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology
NIT National Institute of Technology
IMMT Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology
CECRI Central Electrochemical Research Institute
CFCT Centre for Fuel Cell Technology
NMRL Naval Materials Research Laboratory
NFTDC NonFerrous Materials Technology Development Centre
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IIP Indian Institute of Petroleum

CIMFR Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research
IACS Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science
JNTU Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University
DEI Dayalbagh Educational Institute
ARCI Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New
Materials
BHEL Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited
DRDO Defence Research and Development Organization
Technical abbreviations
TPES Total primary energy supply
TPEC Total primary energy consumption
TFC Total final consumption
GHG Green house gas
TOE Tonne of oil equivalent
CCUS Carbon capture use and sequestration
FCEV Fuel cell electric vehicle
LOHC Liquid organic hydrogen carrier
AWE Alkaline Water Electrolysis
PEMFC Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell
HTSE High Temperature Steam Electrolysis
MIEC Mixed ion Electron conductors
Hy-S Hybrid Sulphur cycle
HTSE High temperature steam electrolysis
HI Hydrogen Iodide
Cu-Cl Copper-Chlorine
HER Hydrogen Evolution Reaction
MOF Metal Organic frameworks
SOFC Solid Oxide Fuel Cell
MH Metal Hydrides
BH3 Borane Ammonia
HT-PEMFC High Temperature- Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell
PAFC Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cell
DAFC Direct alcohol fuel cell
DMFC Direct Methanol Fuel Cell
NaAlg Sodium Alginate
SPSEBS Sulfonated Poly Styrene Ethylene Butylene Polystyrene
BPO4 Boron phosphate
CNT-MM Carbon Nanotubes rooted montmorillonite
CNG Compressed Natural gas
H-CNG Hydrogen- Compressed Natural Gas
kW Kilo Watt
Mtoe Millions of tonnes of oil equivalent
CAPEX Capital Expenditures
69 | P a g e
Acknowledgement
Anu K Raj Mukul Sharma Vaibhav Manoj Sharma
Technology Mission Division (Water & Energy)

Preetham Permude Ankita Bishnoi Binayak Roy

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Mumbai
Cover Page Photograph:

IAS dark field image of hollow glass microspheres
Courtesy : Prof. Pratibha Sharma, Indian Institute of Technology
Bombay

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Department of Science

Department of Science and Technology

Utilization – Fuel Cell 36

Dr. Ranjith Krishna Pai

CO2 emissions NOx emissions

Industry Power Industry Power

SOx emissions PM 2.5 emissions

Industry Power Industry Power

Figure 2. Percentage contribution of the emissions in various sectors

Globally a massive decarbonization is required, if the ambitious emission reduction scenario is to

• National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency

Ministry of Science and Technology

Department of Science and Technology

Department of Atomic Energy

Ministry of Earth Sciences

Ministry of Heavy Industries

Ministry of New and Renewable Energy

Department of Scientific & Industrial

Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas

Figure 4. Benefits of using Hydrogen

Table 1 : National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap: Vision – 2020

Source: NHERM (2006) Report, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy3

Green Initiative for Future Transport Green Initiative for

• Hydrogen storage capacity to be 9 wt%, • Support infrastructure-

• Development of safety regulations, • 1000 MW hydrogen

• 1,000,000 hydrogen-fuelled vehicles on • 50MW small IC engine

• 50,000 two/three wheelers - 50MW • 50 MW standalone fuel

• 50,000 cars/taxis - 900 MW aggregate • 900 MW aggregate

Figure. 5 Pathways to Hydrogen economy

The other methods of production including biomass gasification and photocatalytic or

hydrotreatment processes like hydrodesulphurization, hydrodenitrogenation and hydrocracking

Figure 6. Hydrogen production routes based on feedstock used

Table 2: Estimated hydrogen production and utilisation in the year 2007-08

Estimated Production Utilization during

Petroleum Refineries 1.69 1.46 (Captive use)

Chlor Alkali Industry 0.073 0.064

Total 3.753 3.516

Cost for production

Figure 7. Cost of hydrogen production

• More efficient reforming processes and development of newer membranes

In iodine-sulphur process of thermo-chemical splitting of water for hydrogen production, which

Table 3: Hydrogen production related work at different institutions in India

Institution Nature of work

Optimized production of bioethanol and biohydrogen

6 IIT Kanpur Photoelectrochemical water splitting and fuel cells

Non-thermal plasma assisted direct decomposition of

8 IIT Indore Hydrogen generation though catalytic route

Development of efficient hydrogen supply system

Institution Nature of work

Institution Nature of work

Various Institutions/ Industries/ Organizations working in India on Hydrogen Production are

Table 4. List of scientists working on hydrogen production at various institutions /organizations

Affiliation Name Email ID

IISc, Bangalore Prof. S. Dasappa s.dasappa@gmail.com

IIT Kharagpur Prof. D. Das ddas@bt.iitkgp.ac.in

NIT Rourkela Dr. Abanti Sahoo asahoo@nitrkl.ac.in

IIT Hyderabad Dr CH subrahmanyam csubbu@iith.ac.in

IICT Hyderabad Dr. K. Venkateswarlu chvenkat@iict.res.in

University of Rajasthan Prof. Y. K. Vijay vijayyk@gmail.com