Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen presents an alternative to fossil fuels, but purified water is a precious resource. With the price of renewable electricity on the decline, to produce green hydrogen is becoming an increasingly viable option.

An environmentally friendly energy source that can be created directly by water electrolysis and used to achieve carbon neutrality in place of fossil fuels is green hydrogen. Renewable energy is used to produce hydrogen from water. As a result, carbon capture technology and greenhouse gasses are not used in its production.

Electrolyzes that produce green hydrogen typically depend on pure water, despite the fact that the most abundant form of H2O is seawater.

With the amount of seawater available, research is being done to check the possibility of developing H2.

Because ocean water has a high salt concentration, Stanford researcher Hongjie Dai and his team set out to find a way to prevent it from corroding the submerged anodes. They found that covering the anode with thick layers of negatively charged material slows down the metal’s deterioration.

Among the most important struggles resulting from using seawater in electrolysis is that it corrodes electrodes faster than ultra-pure water.  The sodium chloride and organic salts dissolved in ocean water corrode catalytic electrodes, shortening their useful life.

Numerous developments have been achieved to aid in the resolution of numerous major obstacles to the generation of sustainable H2. Among them are:

• Developing coatings for electrodes that will allow them to remain effective while protecting them against the corrosion of being submerged in salty water.
• Using a semi-permeable membrane for salt water electrolysis.
• Using novel forms of platinum catalysts for ion recombination while floating on the water’s surface to reduce corrosion.
• Using forward osmosis.

Future of Salt Water Green Hydrogen Production

Since seawater is a naturally abundant resource, electrolysis can be used to produce green hydrogen from it, which can help somewhat with the current global energy crisis. But the mass production of green hydrogen is hampered by the corrosion of electrodes in saltwater environments.

In the meantime, several researches and studies are being done to find a way to accomplish this procedure. We will keep an eye on this innovative solution.

In an effort to contribute to the transformation, Universal Kraft works to integrate environmentally friendly, cost-effective solutions throughout the whole power production chain. We have been collaborating with Universal H2, our partner company, on green hydrogen manufacturing for a number of years.

We think hydrogen could address some of the major issues facing the energy transition, including storage, the distribution of clean energy, industrial use, and heavy transportation. Discover more about our solutions here.