An important component of the deep decarbonization of the worldwide energy system is to build up the large-scale utilization of hydrogen to substitute for fossil fuels in all sectors including industry, the electricity sector, transportation and heating. Hence, apart from reducing hydrogen production costs, establishing an efficient and suitable infrastructure for the storage, transportation and distribution of hydrogen becomes essential. This article provides a technically detailed overview of the state-of-the-art technologies for hydrogen infrastructure, including the physical- and material-based hydrogen storage technologies. Physical-based storage means the storage of hydrogen in its compressed gaseous, liquid or supercritical state. Hydrogen storage in the form of liquid-organic hydrogen carriers, metal hydrides or power fuels is denoted as material-based storage. Furthermore, primary ways to transport hydrogen, such as land transportation via trailer and pipeline, overseas shipping and some related commercial data, are reviewed. As the key results of this article, hydrogen storage and transportation technologies are compared with each other. This comparison provides recommendations for building appropriate hydrogen infrastructure systems according to different application scenarios.

The impact of flue gas from the combustion of natural gas or coal in a combustion test facility on the activity of catalysts for the synthesis of cyclic carbonates from epoxides and waste carbon dioxide has been investigated. In batch reactions with styrene oxide as substrate, some loss of catalyst activity was apparent and this was greater for catalyst exposed to flue gas generated from burning coal than for catalyst exposed to flue gas obtained by burning gas. In a gas-phase flow reactor with ethylene oxide as substrate, the detrimental effect of flue gas exposure on catalyst activity was much less apparent.

In China, coal fly ash is a large-scale solid waste generated by power plants. The high value utilization of coal fly ash has always been a hot research issue in China for these years. In this paper, the synthesis of zeolite X using aluminum residue from coal fly ash can not only realize the resource utilization of waste, but also achieve the effect of energy saving and emission reduction. Zeolite X prepared by hydrothermal synthesis method have been found to have higher purity and better crystallinity by chemical composition analysis. By comparing and analyzing the adsorption performance of zeolite X and activated carbon on volatile organic compounds, it is found that the adsorption capacity of zeolite X is higher than that of activated carbon, and it has stronger stability. This indicates that the zeolite X synthesized by this environmentally friendly and economical method has a good application prospect in adsorbing volatile organic compounds.

In order to effectively raise both utilization rate and additional value of fly ash, X-Ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-Ray spectrometer (EDS) were used to investigate the morphology, and chemical and mineral composition of the microspheres in fly ash from the Luohuang coal-fired power plant, Chongqing, southwestern China. The majority of fly ash particles are various types of microspheres, including porous microsphere, plerospheres (hollow microspheres surrounding sub-microspheres or mineral fragments) and magnetic ferrospheres. Maghemite (γ-Fe₂O₃) crystals with spinel octahedron structure regularly distribute on the surfaces of ferrospheres, which explained the source of their strong magnetism that would facilitate the separation and classification of these magnetic ferrospheres from the fly ash. Microspheres in Luohuang fly ash generally are characterized by an elemental transition through their cross-section: the inner layer consists of Si and O; the chemical component of the middle layer is Si, Al, Fe, Ti, Ca and O; and the Fe-O mass (maghemite or hematite) composes the outer layer (ferrosphere). Studies on composition and morphological characteristics of microspheres in fly ash would provide important information on the utilization of fly ash, especially in the field of materials.