India Tackles Hydrogen's Water Crisis with Low-Cost Seawater Electrolyser From the Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Indian Institute of Technology Madras

India Tackles Hydrogen’s Water Crisis with Low-Cost Seawater Electrolyser From IIT Madras

FCW Team | August 28, 2025

Indian researchers have unveiled a game-changing green hydrogen technology that could eliminate one of the biggest bottlenecks in electrolysis: freshwater consumption. Scientists at IIT Madras have developed an indigenous alkaline seawater electrolyser that uses low-cost transition metals instead of rare noble metals, allowing efficient hydrogen production without freshwater — a first for India’s academic sector at this scale.

“In place of pure or fresh water, we used alkaline seawater and developed an electrolyser using cost-effective transition metal-based catalysts that can catalyse both oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions,” said Prof. S. Ramaprabhu, from the Physics Department at IIT Madras. The innovation avoids problematic chloride corrosion by using bimetallic catalysts that favour oxygen evolution over hypochlorite formation — a common issue with saltwater electrolysis.

50 Litres Per Hour from Solar, No De-Mineralised Water Needed

Conventional green hydrogen systems require around nine litres of freshwater per kilogram of hydrogen, a troubling figure as India targets 5 million tonnes of annual production by 2030 — the equivalent of 50 billion litres of de-mineralised water. IIT Madras’ system eliminates this need entirely.

The team has successfully scaled the prototype from a single cell to a nine-cell stack, now capable of generating 50 litres of hydrogen per hour when powered by standard commercial solar PV systems. By avoiding ruthenium and iridium, the unit is far more economical — a key breakthrough as India chases global leadership in hydrogen under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy...more
https://fuelcellsworks.com/2025/08/27/electrolyzer/india-tackles-hydrogen-s-water-crisis-with-low-cost-seawater-electrolyser-from-iit-madras

Who could have imagined that the water problem with H2 Fuel Cells could be improved upon with some R&D? R&D which doesn't really exist in the US unless it can be adapted to bombing and invading yet another nation. We'll see ground-breaking innovation with H2 now that China and India are both working on it daily. US "Media" will ignore it of course, but some of us won't.

DEMO: Salt water Fuel Cell
Unboxing the Horizon Salt Water Fuel Cell


Meanwhile, Donald Jackass Dump says "We're not gonna have hydrogen! It explodes!" - The "Leader of the Free World"