Industrial Applications of Hydrogen

Hydrogen is already in use as an important raw material in chemical industry and particularly in the petrochemical industry. Its various applications have been known and investigated for a considerable period of time.1–3 Hydrogen for industrial use is produced almost exclusively from the fossil fuels: natural gas, oil, and coal, which will therefore be depleted sooner and become more costly as time goes on. It is as true of the fossil fuels used as raw materials in the chemical industry and the petrochemical industry as it is of those used in other applications: they cannot be replaced. In the long term, therefore, a distinction must be made between the use of fossil fuels as sources of heat energy in combustion and their use as raw materials to produce hydrogen and other chemicals. It may well be that industrial needs for very large quantities of hydrogen will give rise to the beginning of a comprehensive new hydrogen technology.