Natural hydrogen in Brazil: prospection for a green business

• Grant number: 22/12650-9
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: February 01, 2023
• End date: January 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Geosciences
• Principal Investigator: Corinne Arrouvel
• Grantee: Corinne Arrouvel
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias para a Sustentabilidade (CCTS). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). Sorocaba , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Alain Alfred Prinzhofer

Abstract

The industrial market for synthesized hydrogen gas (H2) is fruitful (a market involving tens of billions per year) because it feeds the chemical industry such as fertilizers and the oil industry. With the need to decarbonize the ambient air worldwide, the transportation industry is changing to integrate fuel cells into private and public vehicles. However, hydrogen synthesis is not clean (generally obtained from methane, methanol, coal) and it is expensive if obtained by electrolysis. Until today, the main fear of investing in clean vehicles was the cost, but with the oil crisis during the Covid pandemy and the growth of research in the exploration of natural hydrogen, the price of hydrogen becomes competing with oil and the market is predicted to reach 700 billion dollars by 2050. From the last 3 years, academic publications are growing and new reservoirs are discovered around the world. In Brazil, four states were investigated (Ceará, Roraima, Tocantins and Minas Gerais) and other regions will be studied in this project. The search for new reservoirs will be done by analyzing the proxies in the field and by thermodynamic and kinetic simulations to better understand the genesis of hydrogen under geological conditions, its diffusion and accumulation by geomimicry. Based on the results, a business plan will be proposed in order to publicize the needs to accelerate the clean energy transition and to demonstrate the interest of R&D coupled with industrial collaborations. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

OLIVEIRA, PABLO; ARROUVEL, CORINNE; STAVALE, FERNANDO. Zinc blende ZnS (001) surface structure investigated by XPS, LEED, and DFT. VACUUM, v. 229, p. 7-pg., 2024-08-27. (22/12650-9)