Emerging materials challenges in 2026

I've been working for Royce at Cranfield as an application scientist in materials and coatings for extreme environments for about 14 months, since I got my PhD in metallurgy engineering and material science at IIT Indore. Currently I am working on hydrogen permeation and hydrogen permeation barrier coatings.

My job is to deliver the ICP, that is the industrial collaboration programme, and the access scheme. And I also help PhD and master’s students with their research.

Not a typical scientific role at a university

In a typical position you would work towards understanding scientific fundamentals. But in the Henry Royce Institute, we address the typical problems industries face. And this is the fascinating part about being an application scientist.

We do still need to understand the fundamentals, so that we can help our industry partner to understand the research we do with them. But we progress the research from lab skills to higher technology readiness levels: from laboratory to market.

Bridging the gap between academia and industry

I primarily contribute on the technical side, taking ownership of projects from start to finish. This includes managing the project, designing and running experiments, analysing data, and industry-focused reports.

For example, an ICP is a short-term, industry-driven project. I effectively work as a technical specialist seconded to the partner company, focusing specifically on their technical challenges. During this time, I am fully embedded in their problem. We work closely with the industry partner through regular weekly or bi-weekly meetings. As results emerge, we discuss them collaboratively, refine the questions, and design further tests. This iterative, problem-driven approach ensures academic expertise is directly aligned with industrial decision-making.

How to work with Royce application scientists

Email us with your problem and the team will discuss the challenges you are facing. We may advise which materials have the property you’re looking for and, once agreed, we will set the parameters for the project. This may fit into an access scheme, or we may be able to break it down into successive ICPs or, if very complicated, a grant scheme where you will need to contribute financially.

Directly enabling an industry partner’s project milestone

A good example of this, is my work on two successive Industry Collaboration Projects (ICPs) with Rolls-Royce. A key benefit of this approach was continuity: by working across consecutive projects, I maintained full technical oversight, meaning they did not need to re-brief or transfer knowledge to a new scientist, which helped keep the programme on track.

The first ICP focused on understanding how the microstructure of austenitic stainless steel, and the role of its surface condition, influence hydrogen ingress. I led the experimental programme, analysis, and reporting, ensuring the data was robust and delivered within the agreed timeframe.

The outcomes directly informed Rolls-Royce’s ability to define appropriate microstructural parameters for steels intended for real-world aviation applications, supporting material selection and downstream design decisions.

And the next step?

We are now developing controlled oxide layers on the material surface, effectively acting as a coating, to understand how these oxides influence hydrogen ingress. By systematically studying the relationship between oxide characteristics and permeation behaviour, we can determine how surface engineering can further mitigate hydrogen uptake.

This work will help Rolls-Royce make informed decisions about the type and nature of surface coatings required, in combination with the selected microstructure, to achieve the performance and durability needed for real-world aviation.

The challenges industry faces without standardised testing methodologies…

One of the main challenges businesses face in hydrogen permeation is the absence of standardised testing methodologies across the industry. For the same material, different organisations often report permeation data obtained under different testing conditions, making results difficult or impossible to compare directly.

Businesses without comparable data face the following practical challenges:

• It’s difficult to confidently differentiate their products using permeation performance, as benchmarks are inconsistent.
• Uncertainty when predicting long term durability, service life, and safety margins, particularly for hydrogen facing components.
• Increased technical risk when making design choices, qualifying materials, or providing performance guarantees to customers and regulators.

...and how we can help:

We ensure our data is robust by building repeatability into the experiments. For each data set, I typically run three repeat experiments, and if any significant variability is observed, the tests are repeated. This approach is planned into the project timeline from the outset, ensuring my industry partner can trust the results while remaining confident that key project milestones will be met.

Emerging materials challenges to prioritise in 2026

A key emerging materials challenge to prioritise is performance and durability in hydrogen environments. Hydrogen embrittlement remains a critical issue as industries transition existing infrastructure, such as natural gas pipelines or aerospace components to hydrogen service. Hydrogen metal interactions can significantly reduce ductility and lifetime, creating safety and reliability concerns.

To mitigate this, surface engineering and coatings are increasingly important. However, a major challenge is the lack of standardised testing methods to assess coating performance in hydrogen environments, making it difficult for companies to compare solutions and de-risk material choices.

In aviation, the move toward liquid hydrogen introduces an additional challenge: extreme cryogenic temperatures (~20 K). Understanding material behaviour, fracture resistance, and long-term reliability at these temperatures is essential. Prioritising these challenges will help companies reduce technical risk and accelerate safe hydrogen adoption.

Which is why I’m particularly excited about our newly developed LH₂ testing capability. It will directly address these challenges. By testing selected alloys under tensile, fatigue, and fracture mechanics loading conditions while in direct contact with LH₂, the programme will generate high-quality, comparable data at 20 K. This work will establish validated testing procedures and best-practice guidance to support future standardisation, while providing industry with the data needed to design, qualify, and certify LH₂ components with greater confidence.

My advice for technical officers or engineers within those organisations in aviation and the hydrogen supply chain

My main advice is to build a strong understanding of the fundamentals before moving to solutions. Engineers should understand how hydrogen interacts with materials at the atomic and microstructural level, and how these interactions influence mechanical behaviour and durability. Alongside this, developing the ability to use finite element tools to gain qualitative insight is extremely valuable for screening materials and understanding trends before committing to costly testing.

Equally important is hands-on experimental experience. Combining modelling with well-designed experiments helps validate assumptions and build confidence in the results.

For those wanting to strengthen these capabilities, Cranfield University’s Hydrogen Materials Challenges short course provides a structured way to build both theoretical and practical knowledge on hydrogen-material interaction, embrittlement, permeation, cryogenic behaviour and relevant testing methodologies. It’s designed for engineers and materials specialists working across the hydrogen supply chain and can help bridge the gap between academic understanding and industrial application.