Except for oxygen, hydrogen can be account for another important gas in the world. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe, although in its gaseous state it does not naturally occur on Earth and must be manufactured. In industry, H2(g) is produced on a large scale by a process called steam reforming, to separate carbon and hydrogen atoms from hydrocarbon fuels. Hydrogen is used in the laboratory for a variety of lab applications such as Gas Chromatography (GC) as fuel or carrier gas and ICP-MS as a collision gas, in the chemical industry to synthesise ammonia, cyclohexane and methanol and in the food industry for hydrogenation of oils to form fats.
Significant research and development has afforded safer, greener, more efficient and cost-effective means of generating on-demand hydrogen gas for laboratory, manufacturing and industrial applications. Safety has improved so much that Hydrogen gas is now being used in some transport vehicles as a clean ‘pollution-free’ fuel with the gas being generated from water with the by-product of its combustion being water.
Hydrogen energy produced by hydrogen generator or brown gas generator is being considered as one of the alternatives to the future energy options and a promising fuel source for the 21st century cars. Hydrogen is a highly flammable material and hence generates combustible materials which can potentially power gasoline and diesel engines. Due to high porosity, small pore size and large SVR, electrospun nanofibers exhibit photocatalytic activity in splitting of water/moisture for generation of more hydrogen as well as they provide very high hydrogen storage capacity. For example, CNFs and CNTs, as well as some core-shell nanocomposite fibers such as carbon-coated Lithium Nitride (Li3N) NFs, PMMA/ammonia borane NFs and polystyrene/ammonia borane NFs with tailored pore size and morphologies have revealed very high hydrogen storage capacity.
