Hydrogen and fuel cells solutions Centre of Competence (CoC) HySA Infrastructure, at North-West University (NWU), and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research are making a concerted effort to help South Africa and Africa transition towards a green economy by championing developments in water electrolysis for hydrogen production and storage, in addition to exploring the use of ammonium as a carrier for green hydrogen, particularly for long-distance transportation and storage.

HySA Infrastructure CoC director Professor Dmitri Bessarabov highlights the importance of HySA’s most recent hydrogen and ammonium production projects, under the Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS), aimed at facilitating hydrogen and ammonium production, storage and transport initiatives.

The main focus of the five-year SATREPS project – which has been approved by the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), the National Treasury and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) – is to aid the “scale-up of systems to be deployed in the Hydrogen Society Roadmap for South Africa (HSRM) catalytic projects” by validating locally manufactured water electrolysis systems.

“The project is well aligned with the current activities approved by DSI for HySA Infrastructure CoC in water electrolysis development under the KP5 Programme. The overall goal of the Green Ammonia and Hydrogen project is to develop advanced, low-cost components and water electrolysis systems thereby boosting the continent’s ability to produce green hydrogen and ammonia in support of the implementation of the HSRM,” Bessarabov adds.

This will improve local production expertise in and consumer access to green hydrogen and ammonia, which can be easily stored and transported to various industries on the African continent – including chemicals, energy and transportation industries – while creating employment opportunities by developing local, “world-class” water electrolysis expertise.

Despite challenges, such as hydrogen being an expensive source of fuel to produce and use, a lack of regulations and low public awareness of its benefits, HySA Infrastructure believes that investing in this industry is important to enable a greener economy.

Bessarabov cites solutions to some of these challenges, such as shifting from grey to green hydrogen production using water electrolysis; using ammonia to address some of the questions regarding hydrogen storage and transportation; and “well-priced water desalination technology” for water purity challenges.

For future hydrogen research and development purposes, he highlights that HySA Infrastructure is involved in the development of a new infrastructure facility for training and research at the NWU campus, which will also support the piloting and fast-prototyping of water electrolysis components and systems, as well as enhanced storage and transport solutions for green hydrogen.

This is owing to HySA’s eagerness to place South Africa and other developing African countries on a better footing to compete with international green ammonium and hydrogen markets, and contribute to local sustainable development goals.

“As various counties made commitments to import large quantities of green hydrogen or its derivatives, this is equally an opportunity for South Africa to ‘export its sunshine’ in a form of ammonia, as well as beneficiate [the] platinum group metals industry,” he enthuses.