The roots of the current technical fervour into the behaviour of gaseous high pressure hydrogen were set in the 1980s. Then, as now, it was the hydrogen embrittlement (HE) mechanism, which was of primary concern.
However, there has been a major shift in the applications/uses of hydrogen in the past three decades. Whereas the primary industries utilising hydrogen in the 1980s were those manufacturing glass and margarine, it is hydrogen’s ‘green’ credentials, which are now being exploited as a potential fuel for the automobile industry.
The principle behind this lies in the fact that if pure hydrogen fuel is used, the only by-product of the process at the point of use is water. Furthermore, of greater interest is the case if the hydrogen itself is produced from a carbon-neutral sources such as solar energy or wind power (technologies which have taken huge strides in recent times); then we have the potential for a carbon-neutral and emission-free sources of energy, and hydrogen takes off.
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