Microbial hydrogen consumption leads to a significant pH increase under high-saline-conditions: implications for hydrogen storage in salt caverns.

Salt caverns have been successfully used for natural gas storage globally since the 1940s and are now under consideration for hydrogen (H) storage, which is needed in large quantities to decarbonize the economy to finally reach a net zero by 2050. Salt caverns are not sterile and H is a ubiquitous electron donor for microorganisms. This could entail that the injected H will be microbially consumed, leading to a volumetric loss and potential production of toxic HS.

Beyond corrosion: development of a single cell-ICP-ToF-MS method to uncover the process of microbiologically influenced corrosion.

The development of the microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC)-specific inductively coupled plasma-time of flight-mass spectrometry (ICP-ToF-MS) analytical method presented here, in combination with the investigation of steel-MIC interactions, contributes significantly to progress in instrumental MIC analysis. For this, a MIC-specific staining procedure was developed, which ensures the analysis of intact cells. It allows the analysis of archaea at a single cell level, which is extremely scarce compared to other well-characterized organisms.