A joint study by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the European Patent Office (EPO) analyzes patent statistics to illustrate the trends and dynamism in the field of hydrogen that can be created via electrolysis using renewable electricity.

Since 2005, “Innovation trends in electrolysers for hydrogen production” indicates that patent applications for hydrogen production technology have increased by an average of 18 percent annually.

Hydrogen derived from renewable sources can be utilized as feedstock in the chemical industry and as fuel in fuel cells that produce only water as a byproduct. It can also replace fossil sources in synthetic fuels, when paired with recovered carbon, for instance.

In the presence of electrocatalysts, hydrogen can be extracted from water via electrolysis using renewable energy and electrocatalysts. These characteristics make hydrogen an attractive green energy source, but only if its synthesis by electrolyzers is also green.

The new analysis examines the evolution of patent applications over the past 15 years and identifies many tendencies, such as:

In 2016, the number of patent families for water electrolysis methods overtook those for creating hydrogen from fossil fuels (e.g. solid or liquid coal and oil-based hydrogen sources).
In 2018, the number of patents for electrocatalysts based on cheaper minerals overtook the number of inventions based on more traditional but costly electrocatalysts (which employ, for example, gold, silver, platinum, or other noble metals), reaffirming the desire for less expensive alternatives. This trend is prominent, as evidenced by a boom in Chinese national patent applications.
Photo electrolysis is a promising new technology that can merge the creation of electricity and hydrogen in a single phase, potentially reducing manufacturing costs. The report indicates an above-average number of worldwide patent families in this field, with institutions filing approximately fifty percent of them.