Wedoany.com Report-Dec.29, Recently, the joint R&D team formed by Dongfang Electric Corporation Limited and the team of Academician Xie Heping announced that it has made significant progress in the large-scale engineering verification of seawater direct electrolysis hydrogen production technology without desalination. The team's independently developed novel split-structure seawater direct electrolysis hydrogen production system has completed long-duration operational verification, with a single unit's production capacity reaching 110 standard cubic meters per hour and a cumulative stable operation time exceeding 1000 hours.

This breakthrough follows the joint team's successful completion of the world's first offshore sea trial coupling offshore wind power with seawater direct electrolysis hydrogen production in Xinghua Bay, Fujian, in May 2023, and represents continued progress in scaling up the technology for engineering applications. The team completed the development and testing of a 10 standard cubic meters per hour system prototype in July 2024, and subsequently built a 110 standard cubic meters per hour system achieving initial stable operation in September. Within approximately 16 months, the team achieved nearly a hundred-fold scale-up in the processing capacity of the seawater hydrogen production system.

During the R&D process, the team continuously innovated around core aspects such as efficient electrolysis, mass transfer optimization, and module integration. The equipment system adopts a highly integrated modular design for ease of deployment and maintenance, and is equipped with a visual monitoring system for intelligent control. Through split-module design and multiple rounds of engineering optimization, the team effectively enhanced the system's scalability, operational stability, and environmental tolerance.

This technology does not require pre-desalination of seawater and can directly use seawater for electrolysis to produce hydrogen, offering a completely new technical pathway for producing green hydrogen using marine resources. The success of this large-scale engineering verification lays a solid foundation for the subsequent development of larger-scale industrial-grade products. Dongfang Electric stated that it will continue to advance the iteration of core technologies and product development for this autonomous hydrogen production system, actively exploring new pathways for the development of the marine green hydrogen industry.