The hydrogen and CCUS market is shifting from pilot projects to commercial deployment. Taco van der Maten at Malvern Panalytical explains why advanced materials characterisation is the key to unlocking investment.
As governments and industries worldwide accelerate towards Net Zero, the conversation around hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) is shifting. The challenge is no longer simply proving that low-carbon technologies work at a laboratory scale, but proving they can work reliably, repeatedly, and economically at an industrial scale.
However, the question remains: can the industry scale hydrogen and CCUS fast enough without first proving the reliability of the materials behind them?
Taco van der Maten, H2/CCUS Market Development Manager at Malvern Panalytical, highlights that the answer increasingly depends on the quality, consistency, and traceability of the underlying materials data that supports every stage of project development.
Why materials data matters more than ever
Hydrogen production systems and carbon capture technologies operate under highly demanding conditions. Small variations in particle size, porosity, morphology, or chemical composition can significantly alter how materials behave in real-world environments.
- An adsorbent with inconsistent pore distribution may reduce CO₂ capture efficiency.
- A membrane with structural variability may compromise hydrogen separation performance.
- A catalyst with unstable surface chemistry may degrade faster than expected under industrial operating conditions.
These are not simply laboratory concerns; they are commercial risks.
Without robust material characterization, manufacturers face challenges around reproducibility, scale-up reliability, regulatory validation, and long-term operational confidence. For investors and project developers, this uncertainty can delay deployment timelines and increase perceived project risk.
This is why advanced analytical insight is becoming increasingly important across the low-carbon supply chain. Reliable materials data enables manufacturers to qualify products faster, standardise production more effectively, and demonstrate the consistency required for large-scale infrastructure deployment.
In answering the question of whether the industry can scale hydrogen and CCUS fast enough, material analytics becomes a critical part of the solution.
The three material pillars of low-carbon infrastructure
- Adsorbents: Capturing Carbon Efficiently
Adsorbent materials play a central role in many CCUS systems, determining how effectively CO₂ can be captured, separated, and processed. Their performance is heavily influenced by pore structure, surface area, particle size distribution, and morphology, all of which affect adsorption kinetics, pressure drop, and process efficiency.
Advanced porosity and particle analysis enable manufacturers to optimise adsorption behaviour while ensuring production consistency. Understanding pore distribution and surface properties also helps predict how materials will perform under operational pressures and temperatures.
As carbon capture projects move towards commercial deployment, this level of analytical precision helps reduce scale-up risk and improve process efficiency.
- Membranes: Enabling Hydrogen Separation at Scale
Hydrogen technologies depend on membranes capable of delivering highly selective and stable gas separation. However, membrane performance is closely linked to material morphology, crystallinity, phase composition, and compositional consistency.
XRD can provide valuable insight into crystallinity and phase purity, particularly for ceramic and mixed-matrix membrane materials.
For a growing global hydrogen economy, reproducible membrane performance is essential not only for operational reliability but also for building resilient manufacturing capability across key markets.
- Catalysts: Improving Efficiency Across the Value Chain
Catalysts underpin critical processes across hydrogen production and carbon conversion technologies. Their effectiveness depends on carefully controlled particle interactions, surface chemistry, and phase composition.
Techniques such as physisorption and chemisorption analysis using 3Flex and AutoChem/ChemiSorb systems provide essential insight into surface area, pore structure, active metal dispersion, and catalyst surface chemistry. Complementary techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) reveal crystal structure, phase composition, and elemental distribution, helping transform catalyst data from academic results into decision-ready evidence.
In sectors where efficiency directly impacts commercial viability, high-confidence analytical data becomes an essential competitive advantage.
Taco van der Maten, H2/CCUS Market Development Manager at Malvern Panalytical, says:
“As hydrogen and CCUS projects move toward commercial deployment, the industry is entering a new phase where investment decisions depend heavily on data quality and material reliability.
Developers can no longer rely on theoretical performance or small-scale validation alone. Investors, EPCs, and operators increasingly require reproducible analytical evidence that technologies can scale efficiently and operate reliably over the long term. Advanced materials characterisation is becoming a critical bridge between innovation and infrastructure deployment.
Advanced materials characterisation is becoming the critical bridge between laboratory innovation and bankable infrastructure deployment. By improving confidence in adsorbents, membranes, and catalysts, analytical technologies are helping the hydrogen and CCUS sectors move from ambition to bankable reality.”
