EOS Joins a 10-Partner Consortium to Qualify Metal 3D Printing for Hydrogen Service

Industrial 3D printing firm EOS has joined MAT-H2, a ten-organization consortium working to develop metallic materials and manufacturing standards that can survive hydrogen environments. The group addresses a specific gap: hydrogen embrittles, weakens welds, and accelerates fatigue cracking in ways that conventional manufacturing data does not account for.

Metal AM components have different internal structures than cast, forged, or machined parts. Their grain orientations, porosity profiles, and residual stress patterns are shaped by the printing process itself. Decades of performance data exist for conventionally manufactured materials in hydrogen service. Comparable data for additively manufactured materials does not. EOS's role in MAT-H2 centers on metal powder development, printing parameters, and characterizing how AM-produced materials respond to hydrogen exposure over time.

The Wider Qualification Problem

Hydrogen qualification for AM is not a new problem, but it remains mostly unsolved. Siemens Energy has been using AM since 2008 and began applying it to hydrogen turbine burners around 2012. Its SGT 600 turbine has run on 100% hydrogen in workshop testing, and AM-produced burner components are already operating in customer power plants. That single component type required years of development and testing. MAT-H2 is entering similar territory, but across a wider range of materials, manufacturing methods, and hydrogen exposure conditions.

A separate multi-party working group that included welding specialist Fronius, Linde Engineering, and TUV SUD recently qualified a 3D-printed pressure vessel component under a new draft European standard, prEN 13445-14. That qualification required tight compositional tolerances on filler material specifically to minimize hydrogen inclusion. The effort spanned multiple organizations and produced a binding additive manufacturing procedure specification. MAT-H2 is attempting something comparable at a larger scale.

Who Is in the Consortium

The consortium is organized around Wartsila's hydrogen development program WISE and co-funded by Business Finland. The industrial membership includes Wartsila, Neste, Nordic Tank, Teknos, SSAB, Bumax, and SP Stainless, covering a broad cross-section of the metals supply chain. Finland's state research center VTT and the University of Oulu serve as research partners.

That roster matters because hydrogen's long-term effects on materials vary by application. Steels used in tanks behave differently than fasteners or coatings. SSAB is a steelmaker. Bumax manufactures high-strength stainless steel fasteners. Nordic Tank builds storage and transport vessels. The consortium's research will need to account for hydrogen's effects across all of these use cases.

Why It Matters

The hydrogen economy depends on materials that can handle hydrogen exposure safely and economically. Metal AM could make hydrogen infrastructure components lighter, more geometrically complex, and faster to produce. But that potential stays locked until the qualification data catches up. MAT-H2 is one of the efforts trying to close that gap, and EOS's involvement signals that the metal AM industry is taking hydrogen service seriously as a near-term market, not a distant one.