Chinese team proposes AC-driven direct seawater electrolysis for offshore hydrogen

The shift from direct to alternating current targets the precipitation bottleneck that has kept direct seawater electrolysis largely confined to laboratory settings, which is the technical constraint that matters more than the hydrogen output itself. If it holds at scale, the value sits in pairing electrolysis with offshore generation and avoiding desalination and grid interconnection, a different architecture from onshore green hydrogen. The open question is whether the approach moves beyond a first proposal toward demonstrated durability and efficiency outside the lab.