Industrial decarbonization is a daunting challenge given the relative lack of low-carbon options available for “hard to decarbonize” industries such as iron and steel, cement, and chemicals. Hydrogen, however, offers one potential solution to this dilemma given that is an abundant and energy dense fuel capable of not just meeting industrial energy requirements, but also providing long-duration energy storage. Despite the abundance and potential of hydrogen, isolating it and utilizing it for industrial decarbonization remains logistically challenging and is, in many cases, expensive. Industrial utilization of hydrogen is currently dominated by oil refining and chemical production with nearly all of the hydrogen used in these applications coming from fossil fuels. The generation of low-carbon or zero-carbon hydrogen for industrial applications requires new modes of hydrogen production that either intrinsically produce no carbon emissions or are combined with carbon capture technologies. This review takes a sociotechnical perspective to examine the full range of industries and industrial processes for which hydrogen can support decarbonization and the technical, economic, social and political factors that will impact hydrogen adoption.

鉴于钢铁、水泥和化工等“难以脱碳”行业的低碳选择相对缺乏，工业脱碳是一项艰巨的挑战。然而，氢为这一困境提供了一种潜在的解决方案，因为它是一种丰富且能量密集的燃料，不仅能够满足工业能源需求，而且还能够提供长期储能。尽管氢的丰富性和潜力，分离它并将其用于工业脱碳在后勤方面仍然具有挑战性，并且在许多情况下是昂贵的。目前氢的工业利用主要是炼油和化学生产，这些应用中使用的几乎所有氢都来自化石燃料。用于工业应用的低碳或零碳氢的产生需要新的氢生产模式，这些模式要么本质上不产生碳排放，要么与碳捕获技术相结合。这篇评论从社会技术的角度来考察氢气可以支持脱碳的所有行业和工业过程，以及将影响氢气采用的技术、经济、社会和政治因素。