Hydrogen uptake by metals was of high interest for many applications. Hydrogen storage may be a crucial factor for shaping the energy management of the future, but hydrogen absorption in some metallic materials, such as high strength steels, may also cause so called hydrogen induced embrittlement, which constitutes a serious operational safety problem in technical applications. Hence, hydrogen uptake into and permeation through metals was an important field of research. However, what was missing was a ready to use technique with high lateral resolution. Here a novel approach will be presented, based upon a potentiometric hydrogen detection at high lateral resolution.

Scanning Kelvin Probe as a Highly Sensitive Tool for Detecting Hydrogen Permeation with High Local Resolution. C.Senöz, S.Evers, M.Stratmann, M.Rohwerder: Electrochemistry Communications, 2011, 13[12], 1542-5