New corrosion testing facility at QEERI to support hydrogen energy transition – The Peninsula

New corrosion testing facility at QEERI to support hydrogen energy transition – The Peninsula

Doha: Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI), part of Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), is enhancing its corrosion research capabilities with the commissioning of a new testing facility for examining hydrogen interaction with metals.

Established under QEERI’s Corrosion Center, the facility will contribute to the development of knowledge-based predictive models. These will help Qatar’s major industries cope with the challenges related to materials integrity towards establishing a hydrogen economy.

The new facility enables QEERI scientists to study the effect of hydrogen on material mechanical properties at different length scales, from nanometer to centimeter. Deploying the most advanced techniques makes it possible to measure the hydrogen content and then correlate it with the change in mechanical properties.

Hydrogen is the smallest and most abundant atom in the universe. The atom’s small size makes it easy to ingress metals and move around in the crystal structure of the metal at ambient temperature. This results in hydrogen embrittlement, which is the local enrichment of the hydrogen in the metal microstructure, leading to unexpected cracking and failure of metallic components in contact with hydrogen.

Hydrogen embrittlement, in turn, is creating a bottleneck in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy – particularly as the energy ecosystem