A step closer to affordable green hydrogen thanks to CIDETEC Surface Engineering’s breakthrough in the NICKEFFECT project

By scaling up the production of next-generation, porous CRM-free electrodes from laboratory research to an industrially relevant pilot line

What if the biggest barrier to affordable green hydrogen is not only the materials used, but how they are manufactured? CIDETEC Surface Engineering has taken a decisive step toward solving this challenge. Within the framework of the EU-funded NICKEFFECT Project, the research centre has successfully scaled the production of next-generation, porous, CRM-free electrodes from the laboratory to an industrially relevant pilot line — a critical milestone for the commercialization of green hydrogen technologies.

Green hydrogen is key to achieving the EU’s 2050 carbon neutrality targets, yet its production remains two to three times more expensive than hydrogen derived from fossil fuels. A significant factor is the reliance on Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) such as platinum and iridium, which can account for more than half of the cost of an electrolyzer stack. Reducing this dependency is at the heart of NICKEFFECT’s mission.

This breakthrough addresses the often-overlooked bottleneck: moving from scientific discovery to industrial production. Key highlights of the achievement include:

– Advanced electrodeposition techniques supported by electrochemical process models (in collaboration with Elsyca) enabling scalable manufacturing.
– Validation of high efficiencies observed in the laboratory (in collaboration with the Autonomous University of Barcelona), now successfully replicated at pilot scale.
– Protection of the innovation through a patent, securing the technological leap from research to real-world implementation.

This achievement demonstrates that sustainable, CRM-free alternatives can be produced at scale, paving the way for more affordable, resilient, and commercially viable green hydrogen.

With this milestone in NICKEFFECT, CIDETEC Surface Engineering reaffirms that the future of energy is not only about breakthrough inventions, but also about making them happen at industrial scale.