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New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1369702123002390?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13697...
- kadoban 5mo ago> This second shield helps protect the steel in chloride containing environments up to an ultra high potential of 1700 mV. Uh, dumb question, how is 1.7 volts "ultra high potential" ? Is that even enough to do electrolysis like they're talking about?
- ajb 5mo agoI think that may not be the potential used for electrolysis, but the chemical potential of the saltwater-metal boundary. But hopefully someone more knowledgeable will comment.
- manarth 5mo agoGalvanic corrosion typically happens at 0.5V (and as low as 0.15V in salt-water); 1.7V is "ultra high potential" in comparison with normal corrosion thresholds.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- Tuna-Fish 5mo agoThe potential needed for electrolysis of water is 1.23V in theory, in practice a bit more to overcome inefficiencies. 1.7V is enough.
- smusamashah 5mo ago> That is what makes the finding so striking. Manganese is usually not viewed as a friend of stainless steel corrosion resistance. In fact, the prevailing view has been that manganese weakens it. > "Initially, we did not believe it because the prevailing view is that Mn impairs the corrosion resistance of stainless steel. Mn-based passivation is a counter-intuitive discovery, which cannot be explained by current knowledge in corrosion science. However, when numerous atomic-level results were presented, we were convinced. Beyond being surprised, we cannot wait to exploit the mechanism," said Dr. Kaiping Yu, the first author of the article, whose PhD is supervised by Professor Huang. This is the Cannot be explained bit
- adrian_b 5mo agoA bonus is that manganese is one of the cheapest metals, so this method for increasing the corrosion resistance of stainless steel in salted water and oxidizing conditions is very inexpensive.
- MSFT_Edging 5mo ago> which cannot be explained by current knowledge in corrosion science The three stooges effect I see. Too many corrosive elements, they stop each other from getting through the door.
- janderson215 5mo agoThis is great. Any other dynamics in which The Stooges Effect is present?
- PowerElectronix 5mo agoHigh entropy alloys come to mind. There are so many possible metallic combinations when you mix 5 o 6 metals in equal proportions that they all end up being in a single, homogeneous combinantion with about one atom of each per crystal molecule.
- chamomeal 5mo agoOh wow I thought this was a simpsons reference to when Mr. Burns has too many diseases, that none of them can take him down. Cool that it's a real thing
- wnevets 5mo agoI was thinking of the Mr Burns sickness bit which references the stooges [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI0euMFAWF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI0euMFAWF8
- MSFT_Edging 5mo ago
- RugnirViking 5mo agothis kind of headline is bad for our collective souls; I know raging against the clickbait is old hat but seriously, this is ridiculous. Materials science is surely interesting enough to a reader of science direct without being SHOCKED and APPALLED all the time
- RugnirViking 5mo agofor reference, the title on the article itself is “Cannot be explained” – New ultra stainless steel stuns researchers
- pfdietz 5mo agoHacker News readers hate this one weird trick!
- pjc50 5mo agoSo apart from the clickbait, the reason why this is interesting is because it's a limiter for the often cited idea of clean green hydrogen from electrolyis. The current use of titanium and precious metals is, obviously, really expensive, so it's uneconomical to build something that only runs on "spare" electricity.
- londons_explore 5mo agoI don't think the efficiency or longevity of electrolysis equipment is the limiting factor... The limiting factor is that natural gas is very cheap and cracking it to make blue hydrogen is really easy at scale, and gives off CO2 which is useful for injection into wells to increase production. That sets a price ceiling of hydrogen. At the other end of the scale, there are batteries to store 'free' electricity and resell later. That sets a floor price of electricity. Between the floor price of the input and ceiling price of the output, there is no room for electrolysis, even at 100% efficiency, unless government policies mandate it or restrict batteries or blue hydrogen.
- whizzter 5mo agoThere's one case, rural areas often have abundant energy sources (hydro, wind,etc) but few consumers, in Northern Sweden f.ex. a lot is produced but there's a lot of losses in transporting the energy south. Now, yes, as long as natural gas is cheap(inbetween US or Soviet wars) it'll probably be the core for hydrogen, however batteries won't help much in the north since the transmission rather than usage is the cap even with batteries so excess production could be redirected towards hydrogen production.
- pfdietz 5mo agoIf solar continues to plummet in cost we may see distributed industry in rural areas, to take advantage of energy that is essentially stranded by transmission cost. Storage becomes even more important in this scenario.
- 5mo ago
- ritzaco 5mo ago@dang maybe we could have the title changed to something like "Hong Kong researchers develop corrosion-resistant steel for seawater hydrogen electrolysis"
- tomhow 5mo agoThanks! That's too long (limit is 80 chars) but I came up with something that fits. Feel free to suggest something better.
- sveme 5mo agoI think the seawater bit is really relevant here. Only understood the importance of this when I saw the seawater part.
- tomhow 5mo agoOK, how about that?
- HardwareLust 5mo agoMuch better, thank you!
- greenbit 5mo agoI'd click on that
- voxadam 5mo agoYou just know that engineers and management in Toyota's delusional hydrogen division are salivating.
- adrian_b 5mo agoNope. Splitting water into free hydrogen and oxygen is important because it is an essential step for using electrical energy in the chemical and metallurgic industries. For long term energy storage, free hydrogen is not a good solution, but it can be used to synthesize hydrocarbons, which are suitable for long term energy storage or for aerospace transportation. Even with abundant and cheap dihydrogen, using it for energy storage in vehicles is a bad idea.
- kshahkshah 5mo agoThey said “delusional”
- foobarbecue 5mo agoHow does this refute the comment you replied to? That comment was implying that Toyota Mirai et al are ill-advised, so seems like your "nope" should be a "yep."
- ssl-3 5mo agoNope. It's important to always appear to be argumentative, even when in agreement.
- BoxedEmpathy 5mo agoNope. I've noticed this too, even when agreeing lots of comments start with a negative.
- ssl-3 5mo agoNot really. Perhaps it's reflexive.
- dvh 5mo agoSo does carbon, no?
- SwtCyber 5mo agoSometimes, but carbon has its own failure mode: at high anodic potentials it can oxidize
- SwtCyber 5mo agoThe "cannot be explained" headline is a bit much, but the underlying result is genuinely interesting
- bilsbie 5mo agoDupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48109497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48109497
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- drdrek 5mo agoMaterial science is so cool
- pfdietz 5mo agoA problem I'd have with seawater electrolysis is production of undesirable chlorine compounds: hypochlorite or elemental chlorine. Or maybe there are uses for these? Releasing chlorine (diluted!) into the atmosphere might be a way to accelerate the scrubbing out of methane. Chlorine is photolysed by sunlight into chlorine atoms, which immediately react with methane.
- nyeah 5mo agoUnfortunately, some products of methane-chlorine reaction are much less desirable than methane.
- pfdietz 5mo agoIf you react large amounts of methane and chlorine, the methyl radicals will react with molecular chlorine to make methyl chloride. But if the methane and chlorine are dilute, as they would be here, the methyl radicals with react with something else (like oxygen) first. Destruction of methane by chlorine has been observed naturally, for example after the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption in 2022 (although the chlorine-mediated destruction there was less than methane injected by the volcano itself.) https://www.sciencealert.com/a-massive-volcano-destroyed-methane-in-the-sky-and-scientists-are-stunned https://www.sciencealert.com/a-massive-volcano-destroyed-met...
- nyeah 5mo agoThe link points out that formaldehyde is one product of the methane-Cl reactions. Not sure we're better off with the formaldehyde (and its own further reaction products) than with the methane. They're not exactly talking about destroying methane. The methane is turning into chlorinated organic compounds.
- pfdietz 5mo agoFormaldehyde is also the product of the natural oxidation of methane by OH radicals. No, the methane isn't being turned into chlorinated organic compounds. The reaction mechanism is CH4 + Cl --> CH3 + HCl. (Caveat: I don't think the side reaction CH4 + Cl --> CH3Cl + H occurs, but I need to confirm.) The chlorine ends up as hydrochloric acid, which washes out in rain. If you object to the acidity, note that the electrolysis of seawater was leaving behind the sodium ions as sodium hydroxide, so there would be no net increase in acidity. The methyl radical is also produced by the natural oxidation of methane by OH radicals, and would continue along that natural oxidation chain. The link I referenced (and the paper it cites) do not, as far as I can tell, discuss any chlorinated organic products.
- asa400 5mo agoVery interesting. Highly corrosion resistant "unconventional" steels have become somewhat popular in cutlery, with steels like LC200N, H1/H2, and MagnaCut. LC200N and H1/H2 in particular can be left in body of water uncoated/unpainted and come back in a year and they'll be fine. Obviously that's a different setting than electrified seawater for hydrogen production, though. So much cool materials science happening!
- amluto 5mo agoI'm not at all convinced that the highly corrosion resistant knife/tool steels you mention are actually especially high on the corrosion resistance scale -- I think they may just be excellent for a tool steel. If you look at the knifesteelnerds article on H1 (https://knifesteelnerds.com/2019/06/24/h1-steel-how-it-works/ https://knifesteelnerds.com/2019/06/24/h1-steel-how-it-works...), you'll find that it's an austentitic alloy (which is highly unusual for any sort of tool steel), and that it seems like it's likely a somewhat less corrosion resistant than usual variant on steels like 301 or 304. And the rather common stainless alloy used for non-tool applications where high levels of corrosion resistance is 316, which is more corrosion resistant than 304. In any case, this new alloy is weird -- it seems like it specifically has excellent resistance to electrochemical corrosion when it is used as an anode, which is not what people usually use stainless steel for :)
- asa400 5mo agoEntirely possible! I'm definitely not an expert. I own a few of these (LC200N and Magnacut) and I can confirm they've held up well in my own use of getting wet/dirty/etc. vs. other tool steels I have. Where they stack up against non-tool steels or steels not commonly used in cutlery, I couldn't say. That said, I have heard plenty of anecdotes confirming these properties from other folks. People losing a knife in a stream or field and then finding it the following year, etc. > In any case, this new alloy is weird -- it seems like it specifically has excellent resistance to electrochemical corrosion when it is used as an anode, which is not what people usually use stainless steel for :) 100%. Probably almost no crossover into cutlery, but super cool regardless!
- 5mo ago
- nickburns 5mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen#Applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen#Applications
- Michael666 5mo ago[dead]
- briandw 5mo agoI truly do not understand the fixation with hydrogen as a fuel. Compressing H2 to store it requires around half of the total energy that you can expect to get from its final application. Add in production losses and the difficulty in storage and handing, its always much worse than batteries. I can see the argument for use in industrial processes like steel manufacturing as a reducing agent, but not as a power source.
- Brian_K_White 5mo agoI truly do not understand the fixation with trying to use batteries in applications that really need a fuel.
- Tuna-Fish 5mo agoIn a lot of places in the world, the marginal cost of electricity is zero, if your capital costs are low enough to only purchase when there is excess wind. The cost of batteries for long-term storage is still prohibitively high. In contrast, large hydrogen (or methanol, etc further products) are relatively cheap to store. Those two things put together is pretty much it. There is massive room for additional wind capacity in northern europe (and solar in north africa, etc). In order for constructing that additional capacity to make any sense, there needs to be more demand that can idle for ~2/3rds of the time, and make economic sense to run a third of the time. In these conditions, the roundtrip efficiency is an entirely uninteresting statistic, and the capital cost of capacity is what matters.
- KennyBlanken 5mo agoHow strange utility grids are spending on BSS and not hydrogen infrastructure. How strange utility grids are spending on HVDC transmission and not hydrogen infrastructure. HN commenters should ring up their local electrical grid operators and set them straight /s Also, if you have extremely low cost of electricity: you build manufacturing nearby that needs massive amounts of energy, like metal refineries. Or you subsidize electric transport. You don't pour money into a fuel that is a logistical headache and a half, a fuel that nobody uses, and can only be converted back into electricity with the standard terrible internal combustion / turbine efficiencies.
- benj111 5mo agoWhile interesting is this ever going to be actually needed? Unless hydrogen is going to be used in a decentralised fashion, which seems unlikely, water can simply be saved from recombining hydrogen and oxygen. So you only ever need a finite amount of water. Plus there's also futures where harvesting salt / lithium from seawater leaves clean ish water as a by product, or a future where when it's sunny, just boil water to evaporate it with nearly free solar, then electrolyse it. And you'd need near free electricity to make this economic.
- lukeinator42 5mo agoThis would be great for other use cases too like climbing bolts and anchors in coastal areas. Lots of areas are switching to titanium glue-ins which are expensive, but I wonder if this could enable more affordable option. A climber recently died in Greece after multiple bolts failed: https://gripped.com/news/rock-climber-dies-in-kalymnos-after-several-bolts-fail https://gripped.com/news/rock-climber-dies-in-kalymnos-after...
- cgh 5mo agoGood point, not only is titanium expensive but the glue-in part is tricky to get right as the glue has to completely surround the bolt. Not only that, but early efforts at titanium rebolting sometimes didn’t use glue at all. In Thailand, I pulled out some titanium bolts with my fingers because they weren’t glued in.
- kansface 5mo ago3 10mm bolts failing simultaneously after two decades (on direct it seems) is unexpected! If it were an installation problem, I can’t imagine it would take that long and that they’d all go at the same time. Ditto for corrosion… people take victory whips all the time.
- IAmBroom 5mo agoAll three bolts at critical level. A massive strain happens along. They pop: one, two, three! It's not that unexpected.
- lazide 5mo agoIt is absolutely unexpected in climbing. Even a single bolt failing is highly unusual. Additionally, the rope length extends quite a bit of an anchor fails (and it partially recovers it’s elasticity before the other anchors engage). Later anchors would not get forces exceeding a normal ‘healthy’ bolts limits. So there is some systemic failure involved in this scenario.
- inasio 5mo agoStayed a few times in a place exposed to constant breeze from a tropical Pacific coast beach, and learned that stainless steel doesn't really last very long there. Everything stainless steel-based (fixtures, fridges, handles) rusts in a few years. I'd bet there's a market for upscale alloys
- annoyingnoob 5mo agoDepends on the alloy. Just a guess, you had 304 stainless which will rust fairly easily in saltwater. 316 would last longer. Also it can be tricky to retain the corrosion resistance when welding stainless, your part might corrode first at weld points. https://www.nemaco.com/blogs/304-vs-316-stainless-steel-differences-corrosion-resistance-and-when-to-use-each https://www.nemaco.com/blogs/304-vs-316-stainless-steel-diff...
- 1970-01-01 5mo agoIf this is just a second layer, then it cannot be welded during on-site manufacturing nor for repair. If that is true, this isn't a major breakthrough for maritime. Things-of-scale need to be welded to be manufactured at said scale.
- dr_dshiv 5mo agoImagining the giant solar lily pads that can create enormous hydrogen platforms in the sky.
- hannob 5mo agoMaking hydrogen from seawater is not an actual problem that needs solving. The problem with hydrogen electrolysis is its energy requirements to split water. The energy requirements for the desalination of water before that is a rounding error. It's not worth the hassle to develop electrolyzers that can deal with seawater.
- nickff 5mo agoDesalination is not the only application of seawater electrolysis.
- SoftTalker 5mo ago"The same research program previously produced anti-COVID-19 stainless steel in 2021" WTF is "anti-COVID-19 stainless steel" I wonder. Edit: Turns out it's a high-copper alloy that has antiviral properties.
- lucaspiller 5mo agoIs there any progress being made on cars so they are less susceptible to rust? In my country that's the main reason why vehicles are scrapped, engines can be repaired easily enough, but when various suspension parts are corroded and need replacing it's not worth fixing anymore. As I understand one of the reasons against using materials like stainless steel or other alloys for cars is that is is harder to work with, but most new cars today are written off - rather than being repaired - after even minor accidents, so that doesn't really seem like it's a realistic concern.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- simulator5g 5mo agoThis is basically a solved problem. Saturn used plastic body panels on cars for a while. These cars had some painted metal parts that were protected by the plastic, and would never rust, because painted metal only rusts after the paint is compromised. Saturn went bankrupt and no one has been doing this. I suspect that it is really bad for a car company's bottom line because it lets people keep their car instead of buying a new one. Also, you can coat your car underbody in an oil based coating 1-2x a year, and it won't rust. Its just an annoying chore that most people don't want to even think about.