With climate change necessitating the urgent need for carbon-neutral technologies, infrastructure has been established to contribute to the development and commercialization of eco-friendly ship technologies in the domestic shipbuilding industry.

The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM, President Park Sang-jin) under the Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 8th that it has established infrastructure, including equipment for evaluating the suitability of liquid hydrogen storage materials used in ships, together with the Korean Register of Shipping (CEO Lee Hyeong-cheol) and Pusan National University (President Cha Jeong-in), and proposed the evaluation procedure for the first time.

The research team of Director Park Jong-won and Senior Researcher Kim Yong-jin of the Reliability Assessment Laboratory of the Mechanical System Safety Research Division of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, in collaboration with the 3D Printing Equipment Laboratory of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials and Pusan National University, established ultra-low temperature (-253℃) hydrogen embrittlement test evaluation and analysis equipment to build infrastructure, and published a report on the selection of liquid hydrogen storage materials for ships that analyzed safety standards and material suitability evaluation methods in various hydrogen storage fields.

Liquid hydrogen storage systems for ships must be able to withstand ultra-low temperatures and hydrogen embrittlement. The system environment varies depending on the purpose of use and operation of the hydrogen to be stored, and the category of materials that meet the environmental conditions also varies accordingly. Therefore, it is important to establish standards that reflect the risks of ultra-low temperatures and the special characteristics of ships.

On the other hand, Korea and the world have had difficulties in developing the eco-friendly ship market due to the lack of safety regulations for various conditions such as ultra-low temperatures and special ship characteristics. This newly published report proposes materials and requirements applicable to liquid hydrogen environments based on the latest research results, and compares and analyzes the differences with materials and requirements applicable to domestic LNG storage systems. This is expected to contribute to the development of eco-friendly ship technology by presenting standards for various environments.

In addition, only a very small number of research institutes, even in advanced countries, have testing facilities for ultra-low temperature and hydrogen environment material suitability, requiring significant costs for testing and evaluation, making it difficult for domestic equipment companies to enter the hydrogen industry.

To address these challenges, the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) will support domestic shipbuilding industry companies with services such as "ultra-low temperature material performance testing," "hydrogen environment suitability assessment of material components," and "various extreme environment tests and durability assessments," based on the ultra-low temperature and hydrogen embrittlement testing, evaluation, and analysis infrastructure it has recently established.

Until now, companies had to spend tens of millions to hundreds of millions of won on material testing and evaluation alone to develop eco-friendly ship equipment using new materials, but now, various testing and evaluations, analysis, and technical support will be provided domestically at a relatively low cost.

Senior Researcher Kim Yong-jin said, “By establishing material suitability evaluation standards, we can expand the range of applicable materials and accelerate the commercialization of hydrogen ships.” He added, “We will strive to ensure that the domestic shipbuilding industry secures a unique position in the eco-friendly ship market by providing testing and evaluation services in the future.”

This ultra-low temperature material testing and evaluation infrastructure was built with support from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries' 'Development of Safety Standards for Ship Hydrogen Storage and Fuel Supply Systems' project.