ENGINES, TRANSMISSIONS & PROPULSION
Goodbye To Diesel: British Scientists Develop An Engine That Runs On Seawater And Promises To Revolutionize Maritime And Land Transport
Imagine a cargo ship pulling away from port and instead of burning diesel, it runs on fuel made from the very seawater beneath its hull. That is the vision behind a new United Kingdom project that plans to turn salt water into clean hydrogen and use it in ship engines that emit only steam.
Researchers at Brunel University London and clean energy startup Genuine H2 are building what they describe as the country’s first all in one seawater to hydrogen maritime demonstrator. Backed by 1.44 million pounds from the UK Department for Transport and Innovate UK under the UK SHORE clean shipping program, the GH2DEM project will show a full chain from seawater intake to hydrogen production, storage on board and combustion in a heavy duty engine with no direct carbon dioxide emissions.
For a sector that currently produces about 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions while carrying the vast majority of world trade, any realistic alternative to marine diesel attracts serious attention.
From seawater to solid hydrogen on deck So how does this work in practice. The system uses advanced electrodes that split hydrogen directly from seawater using renewable electricity.
This avoids the usual step of desalination, which is energy hungry and expensive, and sidesteps long standing corrosion and chlorine problems that have plagued earlier seawater electrolysis ideas.
Professor Xinyan Wang, who leads the engine side of the project, summed up the approach by saying that the team will “take seawater, split it using renewable electricity to make hydrogen gas, store it onboard as a molecular solid” before feeding it into the engine in place of diesel.
The storage step is what makes this feel different from many other hydrogen pilots. Instead of pumping hydrogen into heavy high pressure tanks or chilling it to very low temperatures, Genuine H2 relies on an ultrathin nano film that locks hydrogen into a solid state at room temperature and normal pressure. This avoids bulky cylinders and complex cryogenic systems, two of the biggest obstacles to putting
hydrogen on workboats, trawlers or ferries that need every inch of deck space.
Brunel’s demonstrator tries to tackle several pieces at once. It produces hydrogen on demand from seawater, uses modified internal combustion engines that many shipyards already understand and couples that with a lighter solid storage system.
Land based tests of the heavy duty engine, powered entirely by Genuine H2’s electrolyser and storage package, are expected to run through early 2026 on the university campus before any move toward trials at sea.
Plug and play energy beyond the port While the current funding is tied to maritime decarbonization, Genuine H2 is pitching its technology as a modular, plug and play platform that can sit in many different settings.
Company documents describe circular units that use seawater or wastewater to make green energy and pure water, claiming that the process can even remove carbon dioxide from the liquid and lock it in bicarbonate form.
Early days and open questions As with any early stage climate solution, there are many unknowns. Engineers still need to prove how durable the novel electrodes and nano films are in salty, vibrating, real world conditions.
The full energy balance from wind turbine or solar panel through electrolysis, storage and combustion must be mapped carefully so that “zero emission at the funnel” does not hide big losses upstream. Policymakers are also wrestling with how hydrogen engines sit beside fuel cells, ammonia and other options in future rules for green shipping.
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www.dockyard-mag.com | March Issue 2026
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