The University of Hong Kong has announced a groundbreaking new stainless steel innovation that could revolutionize hydrogen production and significantly reduce material costs in water electrolyzers. The new stainless steel, known as SS-H2, has been developed by a team led by Professor Mingxin Huang from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Hong Kong.
The new steel offers superior corrosion resistance and cost-effectiveness compared to Titanium, making it a promising material for hydrogen production from renewable sources. This development could pave the way for more affordable and sustainable hydrogen production in the future.
The discovery has been published in the journal Materials Today, and the research achievements are currently applying for patents in multiple countries, with two of them already granted authorization. The team behind the innovation has been working on the ‘Super Steel’ Project, which has previously achieved notable milestones in the field of stainless steel development.
The new stainless steel, SS-H2, has been designed specifically for hydrogen applications, with high corrosion resistance that enables its potential application for green hydrogen production from seawater. It has been shown to perform comparably to Titanium in salt water electrolyzers while being much cheaper.
The development of SS-H2 represents an important breakthrough in the field of stainless steel, overcoming fundamental limitations of conventional stainless steel and establishing a paradigm for alloy development applicable at high potentials. The innovation is expected to have a significant impact on the cost of structural materials in hydrogen production, potentially reducing costs by about 40 times.
According to Professor Mingxin Huang, the next steps include industrializing the new stainless steel for hydrogen production, with tons of SS-H2-based wire already produced in collaboration with a factory from the Mainland. The team is moving forward with applying the more economical SS-H2 in hydrogen production from renewable sources.
The application of SS-H2 in hydrogen production could have far-reaching implications for the renewable energy sector, offering a more affordable and sustainable solution for producing hydrogen from renewable sources.
The research team’s findings have been published in the journal Materials Today under the title “A sequential dual-passivation strategy for designing stainless steel used above water oxidation” and have a DOI of 10.1016/j.mattod.2023.07.022.