Sandia contributes to the science of advanced hydrogen and fuel cell technologies by providing a deep, quantitative understanding and scientific basis for materials interaction with hydrogen. Sandia researches and develops methods to discover and synthesize materials for hydrogen production, storage and use, evaluating their properties and performance.
Sandia’s hydrogen safety, codes, and standards research program develops the technical data and scientific understanding necessary to inform science-based updates to the codes and standards that define the safe use of hydrogen facilitating the commercial use and deployment of hydrogen.
Sandia performs innovative systems engineering and develops technologies that enlarge the hydrogen and fuel cell application space, supporting long-term strategies for hydrogen technologies. Partnerships with industry and academia, as well as with domestic and international institutions and Codes & Standards groups, ensure relevancy and enable an international reach and harmonization.
Key capabilities and accomplishments
Our current Safety, Codes, and Standards research includes the study of behaviors and characteristics of a hydrogen release, risk assessments of hydrogen infrastructure, and hydrogen effects on structural materials.
- Ethan Hecht collaborated with Jennifer Wen, University of Surrey, and Rémy Mével, Zhejiang University, to publish a review article titled Recent advances in combustion science related to hydrogen safety, that covers ignition, fire, explosions and deflagration to detonation transition through experiments and theoretical analysis. Understanding of these combustion topics is critical for the safe use of hydrogen.
- Hydrogen Plus Other Alternative Fuels Risk Assessment Models (HyRAM+) is an open-source toolkit that provides publicly available models and default input values to enable straightforward and consistent safety assessments for hydrogen and other alternative fuel systems, such as natural gas and propane.
- Hydrogen Extremely Low Probability of Rupture (HELPR) is a modular, probabilistic fracture mechanics platform developed to assess the structural integrity of natural gas infrastructure for transmission and distribution of hydrogen natural gas blends. HELPR contains fatigue and fracture engineering models to allow fast computations while its probabilistic framework enables users to explore and characterize the sensitivity of predicted outcomes to uncertainties within the pipeline’s structure and operation
Sandia co-leads the Hydrogen Materials Advanced Research Consortium (HyMARC). HyMARC, completed in partnership with National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, provides the fundamental understanding of phenomena governing thermodynamics and kinetics necessary to enable materials-based hydrogen storage.
- Matt Witman et.al. co-authored a paper titled A Bulk versus Nanoscale Hydrogen Storage Paradox Revealed by Material-System Co- Design. A co-design approach that bridges hydride properties to system performance elucidates that nanoscaling increases heat management efficiency over bulk materials, greatly enhancing material performance.
In addition to our 2025 accomplishments and capabilities, Sandia developed hydrogen-related patents, including:
- L. Klebanoff and M. U.S. Patent 12,297,960 B1 Flow Assist Vent Mass, May 13, 2025.
- M. D. Witman, V. Stavila, Hydrogen Compression and Storage Systems, U.S. Patent No. 12,422,099 B1, Issued September 23, 2025.
For more information about Sandia’s hydrogen and fuel cell research, or to learn how to partner with us, visit our webpages.
December 10, 2025