Home - Hydrogen’s Metal Compatibility Challenge Draws New Industry Research Energy Hydrogen’s Metal Compatibility Challenge Draws New Industry Research Ada Shaikhnag 3 weeks ago 0 Industrial 3D printing firm EOS has joined MAT-H2, a consortium of ten organizations working to advance metallic materials and technologies that can withstand hydrogen environments. The consortium addresses a specific technical barrier. Hydrogen degrades metals. It embrittles them, weakens welds, and accelerates fatigue cracking. These material limitations have slowed the adoption of hydrogen in power generation and energy-intensive industries, and MAT-H2 is organized around solving them. EOS is there because the question of how AM parts behave under those conditions has not been answered. Metal AM components have different grain structures, porosity profiles, and residual stress patterns than cast, forged, or machined parts. Conventional manufacturing has decades of performance data in hydrogen service. AM does not. EOS’s role in the consortium centers on metal powder development, printing parameters, and characterizing how AM-produced materials respond to hydrogen exposure. Paula Kainu, Industrial Manager Energy at EOS said, “Through the MAT-H2 consortium, EOS is helping bridge the gap between research and industrial implementation by contributing expertise in metal AM, material characterization, and application-driven development.” The consortium itself is organized around Wärtsilä ’s hydrogen development program Wide and Intelligent Sustainable Energy (WISE), and co-funded by Business Finland . Beyond EOS and Wärtsilä, the industrial members are Neste , Nordic Tank , Teknos , SSAB , Bumax , and SP Stainless . Finland’s state research center VTT and the University of Oulu serve as research partners. That roster covers a broad cross-section of the metals supply chain. SSAB is a steelmaker. Bumax manufactures high-strength stainless steel fasteners. SP Stainless supplies stainless steel products. Nordic Tank builds storage and transport tanks. Teknos makes industrial coatings. The research the consortium produces will need to account for hydrogen’s effects across all of these applications. Metallographic sample inspection at EOS. Photo via EOS. Qualifying AM Parts for Hydrogen Service The qualification challenge EOS faces through MAT-H2 is consistent with what others have encountered in hydrogen-adjacent AM work. Siemens Energy has been using AM since 2008 and began applying it to hydrogen combustion challenges around 2012, developing metal gas turbine burner components capable of running on hydrogen. AM-produced burners are already operating in customer power plants, and the company’s SGT 600 turbine has run on 100% hydrogen in workshop testing. That timeline and effort give some indication of what qualification demands in hydrogen energy environments, even for a single component type. The standards infrastructure is moving on a similar timeline.