Nickel-Cerium Catalyst Splits Seawater for Hydrogen Without Corrosion

Chemists at the University of Sharjah have reported a new catalyst that can drive hydrogen production directly from seawater, a feat that has long eluded engineers because dissolved salt destroys most electrode materials and derails the chemistry the process depends on. The catalyst, described in the journal Chemical Communications, combines three abundant and inexpensive ingredients: nickel hydroxide, cerium oxide and phosphate. In laboratory tests it required less energy to operate, stayed selective for the desired reaction, and corroded far less than versions lacking either the cerium oxide or the phosphate component. The team reports that it ran continuously at high output for roughly 80 hours in simulated seawater without breaking down or losing performance.

The finding matters because of what sits at the heart of any hydrogen economy: the need to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity. This process, known as water electrolysis, is one of the most promising routes to clean hydrogen fuel, but it is normally carried out with pure, treated water. That feedstock is expensive to produce and, in many parts of the world, scarce. Seawater, by contrast, accounts for roughly 97 percent of the water on the planet and is readily available almost anywhere with a coastline. Scientists have therefore wanted for years to run electrolyzers on seawater directly, removing the need for costly desalination plants before a single molecule of hydrogen is made.

The obstacle is chemistry. Seawater carries large amounts of chloride ions, the dissolved component of salt, and these ions create two major problems for electrolysis. First, they corrode and degrade the metal catalysts that drive the reaction, eating away at the electrode surfaces over time. Second, they compete with the oxygen-evolution reaction, the half of electrolysis in which oxygen is released at the electrode surface. Instead of producing oxygen cleanly, the reaction can produce toxic chlorine and related byproducts, contaminating the output and undermining the selectivity that efficient electrolysis requires.

Dr. Tanveer Ul Haq, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Sharjah and a co-author of the study, framed the challenge in stark terms. “So, the challenge isn’t just ‘can we split seawater?’ It’s ‘Can we do it selectively and durably, without the salt wrecking the catalyst or hijacking the reaction?'” he said. The new catalyst system is the team’s answer to both halves of that question, pairing a corrosion-resistant material design with a surface chemistry that favors oxygen production over chlorine formation even in salty conditions.

A key to the material’s performance lies in its structure. According to Dr. Ul Haq, the catalyst formed tiny, densely packed, pyramid-shaped nanostructures during synthesis. This morphology gives the catalyst a significantly larger active surface area than plain nickel hydroxide, which translates directly into more sites where the electrolysis reaction can occur. The researchers developed the material using a range of advanced characterization techniques, which allowed them to document both the structure of the catalyst and its behavior under operating conditions in simulated seawater.

The choice of elements is equally deliberate. Many of the top-performing water-splitting catalysts in use today rely on rare and expensive metals such as platinum or iridium, whose cost and limited supply have been persistent barriers to scaling up green hydrogen production. The Sharjah team’s catalyst instead uses nickel, an abundant and inexpensive material; cerium, which is modestly available; and phosphate, an extremely common and low-cost component. All three are abundantly available in nature and relatively inexpensive to obtain. Dr. Ul Haq described the combination as “far more realistic to manufacture at an industrial scale” than many of the alternatives now used by the industry, a point of particular significance as the hydrogen sector pursues a concerted push toward affordable, earth-abundant metal catalysts.

The authors also attribute durability to their design, maintaining that the catalyst remains effective for longer periods under real operating conditions than earlier models. “In a stress test, it ran continuously at high output for about 80 hours in simulated seawater without breaking down or losing performance — a good sign of practical durability, not just a one-off lab result,” Dr. Ul Haq noted. The researchers are careful, however, to put that figure in context: the catalytic system has demonstrated stable operation for 80 hours, which falls short of what a commercial-scale plant would ultimately require. “Nonetheless, it is a meaningful early signal that the corrosion-resistance strategy holds up under realistic, salty conditions rather than just in theory,” he concluded.

The broader context for this work is the role hydrogen is expected to play in decarbonizing sectors that are difficult to electrify directly, such as steelmaking, shipping and heavy trucking. Yet most hydrogen produced today comes either from fossil-fuel-based processes or from electrolysis that depends on relatively scarce and not readily available clean water. The Sharjah team describes their approach as an effort to make the entire operation green, producing hydrogen with renewable electricity in a manner that is both affordable and scalable, and one that does not rely on fossil fuels to run. In that sense, the catalyst addresses not only the electrode chemistry but also the supply-chain constraints that have kept green hydrogen expensive.

The practical payoffs for renewable-energy industries could be substantial. Asked about potential benefits, Dr. Ul Haq identified cost-effectiveness and simplicity as the most direct advantages of the method. “If catalysts like this one can reliably run on untreated or lightly treated seawater rather than purified water, it would remove a major cost and infrastructure burden from green hydrogen production, with no need for expensive desalination or water purification just to feed an electrolyzer,” he said. “That’s especially valuable for coastal industrial facilities, island nations, or any region near the ocean but short on fresh water.”

Dr. Ul Haq placed the advance in a longer arc of progress. “This kind of research chips away at one of the practical bottlenecks standing between ‘green hydrogen is theoretically great’ and ‘green hydrogen is something we can actually build at scale, everywhere, cheaply,'” he emphasized. “It’s not a finished commercial product yet, but it’s a solid, well-documented step in that direction.” The study, titled “Coupling electronic modulation with oxyanion chemistry for chloride-resistant seawater electrolysis,” was published on 3 August 2026 in Chemical Communications. For now, the 80-hour stress test stands as the headline result: an early but carefully documented demonstration that a cheap, abundant catalyst can survive the ocean’s chemistry long enough to keep hydrogen flowing.

Subject of Research: Chloride-resistant seawater electrolysis using an earth-abundant nickel, cerium and phosphate catalyst

Article Title: Scientists report low-cost approach to hydrogen production from seawater

Article References: Scientists report low-cost approach to hydrogen production from seawater. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: hydrogen production, seawater electrolysis, electrocatalysis, nickel hydroxide, cerium oxide, phosphate, chloride corrosion, green hydrogen, water splitting, renewable energy, University of Sharjah, catalyst durability