Published the 04/04/2025
Patricia, a physical oceanographer, joined Lhyfe in 2023. Can you tell us about your current role?
I am working at Lhyfe as oxygenation advisor. My focus is on the environmental impacts and potential environmental services of hydrogen production, particularly at sea. My work addresses the use of the oxygen by-product of water electrolysis to mitigate regional coastal ocean deoxygenation to protect the respective marine ecosystem. I am also interested in the environmental impact of cooling water and brine from electrolysis on the water coloumn and local and regional ecosystem.
What state are the oceans in right now?
The ocean plays a vital role in climate regulation, but is severely impacted by climate change, pollution, and industrial activity as stated among other in the 2024 UNESCO “Ocean State Report”. Warming, acidification, and oxygen depletion are causing rising sea levels, extreme weather, and biodiversity loss. Some regions are becoming uninhabitable for marine life and the formerly prevailing local and regional ecosystem is under threat. The ocean needs protection through marine reserves and consistent restoration programs including the implementation of efficient mitigation measures.
Lhyfe explores ocean reoxygenation using the oxygen produced as a by-product during electrolysis. Can you explain this and its potential impact?
Reoxygenation involves delivering pure oxygen to the ocean at specific depths that feature low to no oxygen. The oxygen can be injected near the bottom using small pure oxygen bubbles. This method, used since the 1980s in freshwater bodies, aims to minimize disruption of the water column. By increasing oxygen levels, this technology could help combat oxygen depletion in marine environments, contributing to ecosystem health. But the science, technological and socio-economic questions related to it have to be investigated by independent and sound research (see Handmann and Wallace 2024).
Handmann and Wallace 2024: The global energy transition offers new options for mitigation of coastal hypoxia: Do we know enough? Global Change Biology , Vol. 30, No. 3, Wiley Online Library,p. e17228
You want to know more about this topic ? Read tis article : The ambition to reoxygenate the Baltic Sea becomes more precise