Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Anthony S. Travis gives a talk entitled “The Shades of Industrial Hydrogen: Grey/Blue/Green”.This talk was given on 17 June 2025. The body of the talk was pre-recorded the day before in case of air-raid warnings during the talk itself. This recording is the pre-recorded talk bookended with the introduction and questions afterwards on the day.
The reactive gas hydrogen is essential to many industrial processes. Its uses include in the production of fertilizers and explosives, in petroleum refineries, and food processing. Prior to 1910, hydrogen from electrolytic processes was used mainly in the manufacture of anhydrous hydrogen chloride and in fat hardening. From 1913, it was produced from coal on a large scale and of high purity when the synthetic ammonia industry was inaugurated. From then until today hydrogen has been made, with few exceptions, from fossil fuels. In common with other fossil fuel processes, it leaves a carbon footprint, from the carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere following the so-called shift reaction. When this happens, the hydrogen is called grey hydrogen. If the carbon dioxide is captured it is called blue hydrogen. Hydrogen made by sustainable processes, without fossil fuels, is green hydrogen and offers tremendous potential for use in pollution-free transportation systems, steel manufacture, and production of chemicals. Here I briefly discuss the history of the various processes for production of pure hydrogen. This includes the development of technologies often driven, if not dictated, by available regional resources and feedstocks, including water power, coal, coke, naphtha, and natural gas, as well as the economic factors, and national security. Topics to be discussed include the production of synthesis gas (water gas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen), cracking of hydrocarbons, steam reforming of natural gas (methane), research into catalysts, and electrolysis, its decline, and revival in the efforts to combat global warming.
Anthony S. Travis gives a talk entitled “The Shades of Industrial Hydrogen: Grey/Blue/Green”.This talk was given on 17 June 2025. The body of the talk was pre-recorded the day before in case of air-raid warnings during the talk itself. This recording is the pre-recorded talk bookended with the introduction and questions afterwards on the day.
The reactive gas hydrogen is essential to many industrial processes. Its uses include in the production of fertilizers and explosives, in petroleum refineries, and food processing. Prior to 1910, hydrogen from electrolytic processes was used mainly in the manufacture of anhydrous hydrogen chloride and in fat hardening. From 1913, it was produced from coal on a large scale and of high purity when the synthetic ammonia industry was inaugurated. From then until today hydrogen has been made, with few exceptions, from fossil fuels. In common with other fossil fuel processes, it leaves a carbon footprint, from the carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere following the so-called shift reaction. When this happens, the hydrogen is called grey hydrogen. If the carbon dioxide is captured it is called blue hydrogen. Hydrogen made by sustainable processes, without fossil fuels, is green hydrogen and offers tremendous potential for use in pollution-free transportation systems, steel manufacture, and production of chemicals. Here I briefly discuss the history of the various processes for production of pure hydrogen. This includes the development of technologies often driven, if not dictated, by available regional resources and feedstocks, including water power, coal, coke, naphtha, and natural gas, as well as the economic factors, and national security. Topics to be discussed include the production of synthesis gas (water gas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen), cracking of hydrocarbons, steam reforming of natural gas (methane), research into catalysts, and electrolysis, its decline, and revival in the efforts to combat global warming.
