Sammendrag
Starting my first research in inorganic chemistry, I stumbled across hydrogen where and when I and everyone else did not expect to find it – it is so common and yet so un-common. It makes bonds more different than any other element – polar and purely covalent as protons and atoms, metallic when it pleases, and ionic as hydride ions. Consequently, it shows up in very different forms and locations and has taken me for a journey to my roots in physical chemistry and to electrochemistry – some things discovered and some mysteries remaining. Hydrogen holds a historical role in the establishment of major Norwegian industry, and we today host world-leading production of electrolyzers for the emerging markets of hydrogen for storage and as carrier of renewable electrical energy.
Many different types of solids contain or may take up water and become solid-state proton conductors by various mechanisms of transport. They may be used as electrolytes in novel types of fuel cells and electrolyzers for hydrogen and renewable energy, as well as in electrocatalytic reactors for upgrading natural gas to liquids or hydrogen with minimal carbon emissions or with carbon capture and storage. The research involves experimental and ab initio computational methods to understand hydrogen in its various forms from gas phase, via surfaces and charge transfer at electrode interfaces, into mobile ions in crystalline or liquid-like condensed phases.
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