18th International Symposium on Metal-Hydrogen Systems – MH2024

Last May, 26th–31st, the 18th International Symposium on Metal-Hydrogen Systems – MH2024 took place at Saint Malo (France), co-organized by Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and CNRS/UPEC Institut de Chimie et des Matériaux Paris-Est (France). It brought together 416 researchers, both from academia and industry, coming from 5 continents and 36 countries. The conference scope was the fundamentals and development of new material-hydrogen systems, with expected applications, among others, in hydrogen storage, compression, purification, transport and sensing, as well as in electrochemical devices.

The MH2024 scientific program included 5 plenary sessions, 33 invited lectures, 165 oral presentations and more than 180 posters. Major results on chemistry, metallurgy and research on metal-hydrogen technologies were awarded by 13 prizes, including the prestigious MH2024 best poster award prize in Chemistry from the American Chemical Society. Original scientific papers will be published in a special issue of ACS-Applied Energy Materials after a standard peer reviewing process.

The inspiring presentations and in-depth discussions that took place during MH2024 witnessed new exciting scientific discoveries in the field of hydride-based materials, contributing to progress towards the energy transition.

The IUCr generously provided financial support of $4000, covering full or partial registration fees for 11 researchers from France, Argentina and Switzerland. This support benefited 10 PhD students and a retired professor of crystallography, enhancing the meeting’s engagement and showcasing the vital role of crystallography in material science.