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New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater

sciencedaily.com

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Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater

#11

Post by londons_explore »

pjc50 wrote: post #5

So apart from the clickbait, the reason why this is interesting is because it's a limiter for the often cited idea of clean green hydrogen from electrolyis. The current use of titanium and precious metals is, obviously, really expensive, so it's uneconomical to build something that only runs on "spare" electricity.

I don't think the efficiency or longevity of electrolysis equipment is the limiting factor...

The limiting factor is that natural gas is very cheap and cracking it to make blue hydrogen is really easy at scale, and gives off CO2 which is useful for injection into wells to increase production. That sets a price ceiling of hydrogen.

At the other end of the scale, there are batteries to store 'free' electricity and resell later. That sets a floor price of electricity.

Between the floor price of the input and ceiling price of the output, there is no room for electrolysis, even at 100% efficiency, unless government policies mandate it or restrict batteries or blue hydrogen.

Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater

#12

Post by sveme »

tomhow wrote: post #10
ritzaco wrote: post #7

@dang maybe we could have the title changed to something like "Hong Kong researchers develop corrosion-resistant steel for seawater hydrogen electrolysis"

Thanks! That's too long (limit is 80 chars) but I came up with something that fits. Feel free to suggest something better.

I think the seawater bit is really relevant here. Only understood the importance of this when I saw the seawater part.

Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater

#14

Post by tomhow »

sveme wrote: post #12
tomhow wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! That's too long (limit is 80 chars) but I came up with something that fits. Feel free to suggest something better.

I think the seawater bit is really relevant here. Only understood the importance of this when I saw the seawater part.

OK, how about that?

Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater

#15

Post by whizzter »

londons_explore wrote: post #11
pjc50 wrote: post #5

So apart from the clickbait, the reason why this is interesting is because it's a limiter for the often cited idea of clean green hydrogen from electrolyis. The current use of titanium and precious metals is, obviously, really expensive, so it's uneconomical to build something that only runs on "spare" electricity.

I don't think the efficiency or longevity of electrolysis equipment is the limiting factor... The limiting factor is that natural gas is very cheap and cracking it to make blue hydrogen is really easy at scale, and gives off CO2 which is useful for injection into wells to increase production. That sets a price ceiling of hydrogen. At the other end of the scale, there are batteries to store 'free' electricity and rese…

There's one case, rural areas often have abundant energy sources (hydro, wind,etc) but few consumers, in Northern Sweden f.ex. a lot is produced but there's a lot of losses in transporting the energy south.

Now, yes, as long as natural gas is cheap(inbetween US or Soviet wars) it'll probably be the core for hydrogen, however batteries won't help much in the north since the transmission rather than usage is the cap even with batteries so excess production could be redirected towards hydrogen production.

Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater

#17

Post by leonidasrup »

londons_explore wrote: post #11
pjc50 wrote: post #5

So apart from the clickbait, the reason why this is interesting is because it's a limiter for the often cited idea of clean green hydrogen from electrolyis. The current use of titanium and precious metals is, obviously, really expensive, so it's uneconomical to build something that only runs on "spare" electricity.

I don't think the efficiency or longevity of electrolysis equipment is the limiting factor... The limiting factor is that natural gas is very cheap and cracking it to make blue hydrogen is really easy at scale, and gives off CO2 which is useful for injection into wells to increase production. That sets a price ceiling of hydrogen. At the other end of the scale, there are batteries to store 'free' electricity and rese…

Sometimes the price of natural gas is even negative, there is too much of it.

"Natural gas at Texas’s Waha hub is trading at negative $7.05 per million British Thermal Units, hitting a record low of negative $9.52 on April 15."

https://www.barrons.com/articles/natural-gas-texas-negative-...

There are different kinds of water electrolysis equipment, with different capital expenditure and operating expenses.

"Alkaline electrolyzers are cheaper in terms of investment (they generally use nickel catalysts), but least efficient. PEM electrolyzers are more expensive (they generally use expensive platinum-group metal catalysts) but are more efficient and can operate at higher current densities, and can, therefore, be possibly cheaper if the hydrogen production is large enough."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water#Efficien...

Anything using platinum-group metals will be very expensive. Therefor catalytic converters in cars use very little platinum-group metals.

"The amount of palladium in a converter can vary, but it is typically around 2-7 grams." https://vehiclefreak.com/how-much-palladium-is-in-a-catalyti...

Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater

#19

Post by Tuna-Fish »

kadoban wrote: post #2

> This second shield helps protect the steel in chloride containing environments up to an ultra high potential of 1700 mV. Uh, dumb question, how is 1.7 volts "ultra high potential" ? Is that even enough to do electrolysis like they're talking about?

The potential needed for electrolysis of water is 1.23V in theory, in practice a bit more to overcome inefficiencies. 1.7V is enough.

Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater

#20

Post by Tuna-Fish »

londons_explore wrote: post #11
pjc50 wrote: post #5

So apart from the clickbait, the reason why this is interesting is because it's a limiter for the often cited idea of clean green hydrogen from electrolyis. The current use of titanium and precious metals is, obviously, really expensive, so it's uneconomical to build something that only runs on "spare" electricity.

I don't think the efficiency or longevity of electrolysis equipment is the limiting factor... The limiting factor is that natural gas is very cheap and cracking it to make blue hydrogen is really easy at scale, and gives off CO2 which is useful for injection into wells to increase production. That sets a price ceiling of hydrogen. At the other end of the scale, there are batteries to store 'free' electricity and rese…

Reducing the capital cost of electrolysis is extremely good, because it makes plants that only produce when electricity is cheap (midday in sunny climes, when wind is blowing in the Nordics) more feasible.

If this works out at scale (lots of problems can be found between a lab discovery and mass production), this is legitimately a very good thing for renewables.

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