The University of Hong Kong Department of Mechanical Engineering Professor Wong Ming-yan team held a press conference on November 14, announced that the team successfully developed a “stainless steel for hydrogen production”, its corrosion resistance to salt water and hydrogen production performance is far superior to traditional stainless steel, if the realization of industrial applications will significantly reduce the cost of electrolysis of seawater to produce hydrogen, thereby contributing to the development of the hydrogen industry and the realization of the carbon peak, Carbon neutral contribution.
It is understood that at present, the use of desalinated seawater or acidic solution hydrogen production, usually using expensive gold-plated or platinum-plated pure titanium materials as electrolyzer structural components. At this stage, the power of 10 megawatts of PEM electrolyzer equipment, the overall cost of about 17.8 million Hong Kong dollars, of which the proportion of structural components costs can be as high as 53%, Professor Huang Mingxin team developed a new stainless steel is expected to reduce the cost of structural materials by about 40 times.
Huang Mingxin said, “stainless steel for hydrogen production” can produce hydrogen directly in salt water, can also replace the pure titanium structural components, so that the cost of structural components dozens of times cheaper, for the current is still in the research and development stage of seawater hydrogen production technology to provide feasible and cost-effective solutions. “In collaboration with a factory in the Mainland, we have successfully manufactured tons of the new stainless steel wire for additional testing, and we expect to apply this very cost-effective steel to the hydrogen energy sector.” He said.
“The discovery process of this new steel is full of serendipity.” In an interview with CNA, Huang Mingxin admitted that at first, he just wanted to develop a stainless steel with good performance. I didn’t expect to find that after it was made, it still didn’t corrode when electrolysis of water occurred at a very high potential. “This is out of our expectation. Then we discovered the scientific principle at the atomic scale, and now we want to push it into applications.”
Huang Mingxin said it took the team nearly six years from the discovery of this new type of steel to the formal publication of the research results opening the door to applications. Currently the research paper has been published in the field of materials science journal “Materials Today” (Materials Today). “Stainless steel for hydrogen production” is applying for patents in many countries, two have been authorized, and there are hydrogen energy companies to express interest in cooperation.