The "cannot be explained" headline is a bit much, but the underlying result is genuinely interesting
New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater
21–30 of 153 posts
Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater
#22So 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.
Yes, although I'd still want to see how much of total delivered hydrogen cost this actually moves
Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater
#23So does carbon, no?
Sometimes, but carbon has its own failure mode: at high anodic potentials it can oxidize
Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater
#24So 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…
> unless government policies mandate it or restrict batteries or blue hydrogen
Yes, but I think this the most likely outcome. Natural gas is only cheap in certain areas, and the past few years have made everyone very, very aware of the geopolitics involved in getting hold of it. While global warming is not going away, and I question the extent to which CCS actually happens with blue hydrogen.
Batteries are capital equipment in the same way as electrolysers are. They're great at short term storage, but medium-term is still a bit more of an issue. "Restrict batteries" is obviously not on the table except for stupid retail corner cases where utilities have captured the regulator.
There's a potential market for lots of green H2 in Haber nitrogen, metals refining, and synthetic jet fuel etc, but only if the cheap CO2 emitting option is priced out or banned, or H2 electrolysers get comparable capital prices to battery storage.
Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater
#25> That is what makes the finding so striking. Manganese is usually not viewed as a friend of stainless steel corrosion resistance. In fact, the prevailing view has been that manganese weakens it. > "Initially, we did not believe it because the prevailing view is that Mn impairs the corrosion resistance of stainless steel. Mn-based passivation is a counter-intuitive discovery, which cannot be explained by current know…
A bonus is that manganese is one of the cheapest metals, so this method for increasing the corrosion resistance of stainless steel in salted water and oxidizing conditions is very inexpensive.
Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater
#26You just know that engineers and management in Toyota's delusional hydrogen division are salivating.
Nope.
Splitting water into free hydrogen and oxygen is important because it is an essential step for using electrical energy in the chemical and metallurgic industries.
For long term energy storage, free hydrogen is not a good solution, but it can be used to synthesize hydrocarbons, which are suitable for long term energy storage or for aerospace transportation.
Even with abundant and cheap dihydrogen, using it for energy storage in vehicles is a bad idea.
Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> unless government policies mandate it or restrict batteries or blue hydrogen Yes, but I think this the most likely outcome. Natural gas is only cheap in certain areas, and the past few years have made everyone very, very aware of the geopolitics involved in getting hold of it. While global warming is not going away, and I question the extent to which CCS actually happens with blue hydrogen. Batteries are capital eq…
With CO2 emitting option is priced out or banned, direct hydrogen production using high temperature sulfur–iodine cycle without H2 electrolysers could be economic option. The heat could be supplied from high temperature nuclear reactor.
Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
> unless government policies mandate it or restrict batteries or blue hydrogen Yes, but I think this the most likely outcome. Natural gas is only cheap in certain areas, and the past few years have made everyone very, very aware of the geopolitics involved in getting hold of it. While global warming is not going away, and I question the extent to which CCS actually happens with blue hydrogen. Batteries are capital eq…
With CO2 emitting option is priced out or banned, direct hydrogen production using high temperature sulfur–iodine cycle without H2 electrolysers could be economic option. The heat could be supplied from high temperature nuclear reactor.
How to make hydrogen production cheaper and easier: include an atomic reactor component.
Huh?
I’d be interested in hearing about some scenario where this actually costs less, given the cost of building anything nuclear in 2026.
Re: New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater
#29> That is what makes the finding so striking. Manganese is usually not viewed as a friend of stainless steel corrosion resistance. In fact, the prevailing view has been that manganese weakens it. > "Initially, we did not believe it because the prevailing view is that Mn impairs the corrosion resistance of stainless steel. Mn-based passivation is a counter-intuitive discovery, which cannot be explained by current know…
> which cannot be explained by current knowledge in corrosion science
The three stooges effect I see. Too many corrosive elements, they stop each other from getting through the door.