Fraunhofer institutes in Germany are developing coatings for hydrogen pipelines and working on ways to produce hydrogen from waste. The pipeline work targets the material stresses that hydrogen can cause in steel pipes, which matters for plans to reuse existing gas networks. The waste-to-hydrogen research is aimed at making low-carbon hydrogen from feedstocks that might otherwise be discarded. Both projects are early stage, but they hit two practical bottlenecks for hydrogen: delivery infrastructure and production cost. Anyone tracking hydrogen markets should look for pilot results and cost data before treating these as near-term commercial wins.
