Fraunhofer Institute for Microstructure of Materials and Systems IMWSThe topic of hydrogen technologies is one of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft's seven strategic research fields. With the aim of developing hydrogen technologies to market maturity in the short term and thus contributing to the energy transition, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft has founded a hydrogen network. The more than 36 member institutes pool their activities in the field of hydrogen technologies within the network. Their expertise ranges from material and system development and production to applications in the energy sector and industry, as well as cross-cutting issues such as safety and life cycle analyses.
The Fraunhofer IMWS is contributing its many years of experience and expertise in the characterization and development of materials. The current work is primarily aimed at providing safe materials, components and systems for the hydrogen economy. Since the production and storage of high-purity hydrogen places considerable demands on materials, excellent expertise in material characterization and diagnostics is an important prerequisite. We therefore analyse and characterize materials and components using microstructural methods in particular. This covers the entire process from production (material selection, material development, power electronics), storage (high-pressure tanks) and transportation (pipelines) through to use (sensor components, clarification of ageing effects) and integration into the energy system (techno-economic assessments, feasibility analyses, simulation, system design).
