Timeline of hydrogen technologies

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{{More citations needed|date=February 2025}}

This is a timeline of the history of hydrogen technology.

File:Timeline of future development of hydrogen technologies as a key enabler of the energy transition.jpg]]

Timeline

=16th century=

  • c. 1520 – First recorded observation of hydrogen by Paracelsus through dissolution of metals (iron, zinc, and tin) in sulfuric acid.

=17th century=

=18th century=

=19th century=

=20th century=

  • 1901 – Wilhelm Normann introduces the hydrogenation of fats.
  • 1903 – Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky publishes "The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices".[http://epizodsspace.testpilot.ru/bibl/dorev-knigi/ciolkovskiy/issl-03st.html Tsiolkovsky's Исследование мировых пространств реактивными приборами – The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices (Russian paper)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081019234511/http://epizodsspace.testpilot.ru/bibl/dorev-knigi/ciolkovskiy/issl-03st.html |date=2008-10-19 }}
  • 1907 – Lane hydrogen producer.
  • 1909 – Count Ferdinand Adolf August von Zeppelin make the first long distance flight with the Zeppelin LZ5.
  • 1909 – Linde–Frank–Caro process.
  • 1910 – The first Zeppelin passenger flight with the Zeppelin LZ7.
  • 1910 – Fritz Haber patents the Haber process.
  • 1912 – The first scheduled international Zeppelin passenger flights with the Zeppelin LZ13.
  • 1913 – Niels Bohr explains the Rydberg formula for the spectrum of hydrogen by imposing a quantization condition on classical orbits of the electron in hydrogen.
  • 1919 – The first Atlantic crossing by airship with the Beardmore HMA R34.
  • 1920 – Hydrocracking, a plant for the commercial hydrogenation of brown coal is commissioned at Leuna in Germany.{{cite web|url=http://www.cheresources.com/refining5.shtml|title=A Students Guide to Refining – Energy – Articles – Chemical Engineering – Frontpage – Cheresources.com|work=Cheresources.com Community|access-date=8 February 2016}}
  • 1923 – Steam reforming, the first synthetic methanol is produced by BASF in Leuna.
  • 1923 – J. B. S. Haldane envisions in Daedalus; or, Science and the Future "great power stations where during windy weather the surplus power will be used for the electrolytic decomposition of water into oxygen and hydrogen".
  • 1926 – Wolfgang Pauli and Erwin Schrödinger show that the Rydberg formula for the spectrum of hydrogen follows from the new quantum mechanics.
  • 1926 – Partial oxidation, Vandeveer and Parr at the University of Illinois use oxygen in the place of air for the production of syngas.
  • 1926 – Cyril Norman Hinshelwood describes the phenomenon of chain reaction.
  • 1926 – Umberto Nobile makes the first flight over the North Pole with the hydrogen airship Norge.
  • 1929 – Paul Harteck and Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer achieve the first synthesis of pure parahydrogen.
  • 1929 – The hydrogen-filled LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin makes a 33,234 km (20,651 mi; 17,945 nmi) circumnavigation of the world. It is the first and only airship to do so, and the second circumnavigation of the globe by air. The voyage took a total of 21 days, 5 hours, and 31 minutes.
  • 1930 – Rudolf Erren – Erren engine – patent CH148238A – Improvements in and relating to internal combustion engines using a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen as fuel.[http://www.wikipatents.com/gb/0364180.html Improvements in and relating to internal combustion engines using a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen as fuel] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20130105202039/http://www.wikipatents.com/gb/0364180.html |date=2013-01-05 }}
  • 1935 – Eugene Wigner and H.B. Huntington predict metallic hydrogen.
  • 1937 – The Zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg is destroyed by fire.
  • 1937 – The Heinkel HeS 1 experimental gaseous hydrogen-fueled centrifugal jet engine is tested at Hirth in March – the first working jet engine.
  • 1937 – The first hydrogen-cooled turbogenerator goes into service at Dayton, Ohio.
  • 1938 – The first 240 km hydrogen pipeline Rhine-Ruhr.[http://www.storhy.net/train-in/PDF-TI/03_StorHy-Train-IN-Session-1_3_JToepler.pdf The Technological Steps of Hydrogen Introduction – pag 24]
  • 1938 – Igor Sikorsky from Sikorsky Aircraft proposes liquid hydrogen as a fuel.
  • 1939 – Rudolf Erren – Erren engine – US patent 2,183,674 – Internal combustion engine using hydrogen as fuel.
  • 1939 – Hans Gaffron discovers that algae can switch between producing oxygen and hydrogen.
  • 1941 – The first mass application of hydrogen in internal combustion engines: Russian lieutenant Boris Shelishch in the besieged Leningrad converts some hundreds cars "GAZ-AA" which serve posts of barrage balloons of air defense.
  • 1943 – Liquid hydrogen is tested as rocket fuel at Ohio State University.
  • 1943 – Arne Zetterström describes hydrox.
  • 1947 – Willis Lamb and Robert Retherford measure the small energy shift (the Lamb shift) between the 2S1/2 and 2P1/2 orbitals of hydrogen, providing a great stimulus to the development of quantum electrodynamics.
  • 1949 – Hydrodesulfurization (catalytic reforming) is commercialized under the name "platforming process".
  • 1951 – Underground hydrogen storage.{{cite tech report|title=Underground hydrogen storage. Final report. [Salt caverns, excavated caverns, aquifers and depleted fields] |author1=Foh, S.|author2=Novil, M.|author3=Rockar, E.|author4=Randolph, P.|year=1979 |doi=10.2172/6536941 |osti = 6536941|doi-access=free}}
  • 1952 – Ivy Mike, the first successful test of a nuclear explosive based on hydrogen (actually, deuterium) fusion.
  • 1952 – Non-refrigerated transport Dewar.
  • 1955 – W. Thomas Grubb modifies the fuel cell design by using a sulphonated polystyrene ion-exchange membrane as the electrolyte.
  • 1957 – Pratt & Whitney's model 304 jet engine using liquid hydrogen as fuel tested for the first time as part of the Lockheed CL-400 Suntan project.{{cite book | author = Sloop, John L. | title = Liquid hydrogen as a propulsion fuel, 1945-1959. (The NASA history series) (NASA SP-4404) | url = http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4404/ch8-9.htm | pages = 154–157 | year = 1978 | publisher = National Aeronautics and Space Administration | access-date = 2008-08-29 | archive-date = 2016-06-03 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160603222906/http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4404/ch8-9.htm | url-status = dead }}
  • 1957 – The specifications for the U-2 a double axle liquid hydrogen semi-trailer are issued.{{cite web|url=https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4404/ch8-11.htm|title=ch8-11|access-date=8 February 2016}}
  • 1958 – Leonard Niedrach devises a way of depositing platinum onto the membrane, known as the Grubb-Niedrach fuel cell.
  • 1958 – Allis-Chalmers demonstrates the D 12, the first 15 kW fuel cell tractor.[http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/media/pdf/archive/Article_1152_Fuel%20Cell%20History%20part%202%20with%20illustrations.pdf 1958 D 12 – Pag. 7] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081217051225/http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/media/pdf/archive/Article_1152_Fuel%20Cell%20History%20part%202%20with%20illustrations.pdf |date=2008-12-17 }}
  • 1959 – Francis Thomas Bacon builds the Bacon Cell, the first practical 5 kW hydrogen-air fuel cell to power a welding machine.
  • 1960 – Allis-Chalmers builds the first fuel cell forklift.{{cite web|url=http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/about-fuel-cells/history|title=Fuel Cell History – Fuel Cell Today|access-date=8 February 2016}}
  • 1961 – RL-10 liquid hydrogen-fuelled rocket engine first flight.
  • 1964 – Allis-Chalmers builds a 750-watt fuel cell to power a one-man underwater research vessel.{{Cite web |url=http://www.aesc-inc.com/download/Ishii_Fuel_Cell_Paper.pdf |title=1964 Allis Chalmers Pag.1 |access-date=2008-09-07 |archive-date=2009-03-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090319201032/http://www.aesc-inc.com/download/Ishii_Fuel_Cell_Paper.pdf |url-status=dead }}
  • 1965 – The first commercial use of a fuel cell in Project Gemini.
  • 1965 – Allis-Chalmers builds the first fuel cell golf carts.
  • 1966 – General Motors presents Electrovan, the world's first fuel cell automobile.{{cite web|title=Fuel cell electric vehicles and hydrogen infrastructure: status 2012|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233987484|last1=Eberle|first1=Ulrich|first2=Bernd|last2=Mueller|first3=Rittmar|last3=von Helmolt|publisher=Energy & Environmental Science |access-date=2014-12-19}}
  • 1966 – Slush hydrogen.
  • 1966 – J-2 (rocket engine) liquid hydrogen rocket engine flies..
  • 1967 – Akira Fujishima discovers the Honda-Fujishima effect, used for photocatalysis in the photoelectrochemical cell.
  • 1967 – Hydride compressor.
  • 1970 – Nickel hydrogen battery.[http://pdf.aiaa.org/jaPreview/JE/1982/PVJAPRE62569.pdf Nickel-Hydrogen Battery Technology—Development and Status] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090318050754/http://pdf.aiaa.org/jaPreview/JE/1982/PVJAPRE62569.pdf |date=2009-03-18 }}
  • 1970 – John Bockris or Lawrence W. Jones coins the term hydrogen economy.{{cite web|url=http://www.getenergysmart.org/Files/Schools/Hydrogen/3HistoryofHydrogen.pdf|title=SaveOnEnergy's Learning Center – Helping Customers since 2003|author=Christina H|access-date=8 February 2016}}Lawrence W. Jones [http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/5800 Toward a liquid hydrogen fuel economy], University of Michigan Engineering Technical Report UMR2320, March 13, 1970
  • 1973 – The 30 km hydrogen pipeline in Isbergues.
  • 1973 – Linear compressor.
  • 1975 – John BockrisEnergy, The Solar-Hydrogen Alternative – {{ISBN|0-470-08429-4}}.
  • 1979 – HM7B rocket engine.
  • 1981 – Space Shuttle Main Engine first flight.
  • 1988 – First flight of Tupolev Tu-155, a variant of the Tu-154 airliner designed to run on hydrogen.
  • 1990 – The first solar-powered hydrogen production plant Solar-Wasserstoff-Bayern becomes operational.
  • 1996 – Vulcain rocket engine.
  • 1997 – Anastasios Melis discovers that the deprivation of sulfur will cause algae to switch from producing oxygen to producing hydrogen.
  • 1998 – Type 212 submarine.
  • 1999 – Hydrogen pinch.
  • 2000 – Peter Toennies demonstrates superfluidity of hydrogen at 0.15 K.

=21st century=

{{Multiple issues|section=yes|

{{Update section|date=September 2020}}

{{Expand section|date=September 2020}}

}}

  • 2001 – The first type IV hydrogen tanks for compressed hydrogen at 700 bar (10000 PSI) are demonstrated.
  • 2002 – Type 214 submarine.
  • 2002 – The first hydrail locomotive is demonstrated in Val-d'Or, Quebec.Sandia Corporation (2004). [http://aie.org.au/AIE/Documents/CD_Contents_Conference_Proceedings/WHEC2008/Extended%20Abstracts/323.pdf Fuel-Cell-Powered Mine Locomotive] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141224103728/http://aie.org.au/AIE/Documents/CD_Contents_Conference_Proceedings/WHEC2008/Extended%20Abstracts/323.pdf |date=2014-12-24 }}. Sandia National Laboratories.
  • 2004 – DeepC, an autonomous underwater vehicle propelled by an electric motor powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.
  • 2005 – Ionic liquid piston compressor.
  • 2013 – The first commercial 2 megawatt power to gas installation in Falkenhagen comes online for 360 cubic meters of hydrogen per hour hydrogen storage into the natural gas grid.{{cite web|url=http://www.eon.com/en/media/news/press-releases/2013/8/28/eon-inaugurates-power-to-gas-unit-in-falkenhagen-in-eastern-germany.html|title=E.ON inaugurates power-to-gas unit in Falkenhagen in eastern Germany|date=28 August 2013|access-date=8 February 2016}}
  • 2014 – The Japanese fuel cell micro combined heat and power (mCHP) ENE FARM project passes 100,000 sold systems.{{cite web|url=http://www.hyer.eu/2014/enfarm-enefield-eneware|title=HyER » Enfarm, enefield, eneware!|access-date=8 February 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160215204028/http://www.hyer.eu/2014/enfarm-enefield-eneware|archive-date=15 February 2016}}
  • 2014 – Toyota releases its first hydrogen fuel cell car, the Mirai.
  • 2017 – Hydrogen Council is formed to expedite development and commercialization of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. EMEC produces [https://www.emec.org.uk/press-release-worlds-first-tidal-powered-hydrogen-generated-at-emec/ world's first tidal-powered hydrogen] in Orkney, Scotland.
  • 2019 – Researchers at the KU Leuven university, Belgium, develop a solar hydrogen panel that is able to produce 250l of H2 per day directly from sunlight and water vapor utilizing phytocatalytic water splitting, reporting a conversion efficiency of 15%

{{cite journal

| last1 = Heremans

| first1 = Gino

| last2 = Trompoukis

| first2 = Christos

| date = 2017

| title = Vapor-fed solar hydrogen production exceeding 15% efficiency using earth abundant catalysts and anion exchange membrane

| url = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320033354

| journal = Sustainable Energy & Fuels

| volume = 1

| issue = 10

| pages = 2061–2065

| doi = 10.1039/C7SE00373K

| access-date = 2020-11-09

}}

– about a 150-fold improvement of the efficiency figure ten years back (0.1%).

{{cite web

|url= https://spectrum.ieee.org/solar-panel-prototype-splits-water-to-produce-hydrogen

|title= Solar Panel Splits Water to Produce Hydrogen

|last= Gallucci

|first= Maria

|date= 2019-03-13

|website= IEEE Spectrum

|publisher= IEEE

|access-date= 2020-11-09

|quote=A research team in Belgium says its prototype panel can produce 250 liters of hydrogen gas per day}}

  • 2021 – Enapter, co-founded by Vaitea Cowan, is awarded the 2021 Earthshot Prize for the ‘Fix our Climate’ category for its AEM Electrolyser technology, which turns renewable electricity into emission-free hydrogen gas.{{Cite web|title=EarthShot Prizewinners 2021 - Climate|url=https://earthshotprize.org/london-2021/the-earthshot-prize-winners-finalists/climate/|website=EarthshotPrize.org}} [https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/raf-breaks-world-record-orkney-25475460 RAF gains Guinness World Record] for the first successful flight powered by synthetic fuel produced from green hydrogen generated by EMEC in Orkney.
  • 2022 – Researchers in Cambridge develop floating artificial leaves for light-driven hydrogen production. The lightweight, flexible devices are scalable and can float on water similar to lotus leaves.{{Cite journal |last1=Andrei |first1=Virgil |last2=Ucoski |first2=Geani M. |last3=Pornrungroj |first3=Chanon |last4=Uswachoke |first4=Chawit |last5=Wang |first5=Qian |last6=Achilleos |first6=Demetra S. |last7=Kasap |first7=Hatice |last8=Sokol |first8=Katarzyna P. |last9=Jagt |first9=Robert A. |last10=Lu |first10=Haijiao |last11=Lawson |first11=Takashi |last12=Wagner |first12=Andreas |last13=Pike |first13=Sebastian D. |last14=Wright |first14=Dominic S. |last15=Hoye |first15=Robert L. Z. |display-authors=10 |date=2022-08-17 |title=Floating perovskite-BiVO4 devices for scalable solar fuel production |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04978-6 |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=608 |issue=7923 |pages=518–522 |doi=10.1038/s41586-022-04978-6 |pmid=35978127 |bibcode=2022Natur.608..518A |s2cid=251645379 |issn=1476-4687}}
  • 2023 – Toyota's liquid hydrogen powered Corolla participates in the Super Taikyu Fuji 24 Hours Race where it beats gaseous hydrogen powered Corolla's previous record by completing 358 laps (1,634 km).{{Cite web |last=CORPORATION |first=TOYOTA MOTOR |title=NEWSCAST|Liquid Hydrogen Corolla's World-First 24-Hour Challenge|TOYOTA TIMES |url=https://toyotatimes.jp/en/newscast/020.html |access-date=2023-10-10 |website=TOYOTA TIMES |language=en}}

See also

References

{{reflist|33em}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Timeline Of Hydrogen Technologies}}

Hydrogen technologies

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Hydrogen