From the Field: Why Filtration Matters in the Future of Green Hydrogen
Nov, 2026
Green hydrogen continues to attract interest as a potential pathway for decarbonizing hard-to-abate industries, but the market remains early in its development. Many projects are still in the pilot, demonstration or planning stages, and progress depends on overcoming cost, infrastructure, demand and technical challenges. Within that context, reliability, contamination control and system performance are important considerations as developers test and refine their approaches.
As a Senior Field Application Specialist at Pall, Dr. Maria Anez-Lingerfelt works directly with OEMs, EPCs, operators and research institutions to help address filtration and separation challenges across the green hydrogen value chain. We spoke with Maria about her role, lessons learned from the field and how teams are evaluating technical risk while the market develops.
What is your role as a Field Application Specialist in green hydrogen projects?
As a Field Application Specialist (FAS), my role is to provide technical guidance to green hydrogen production OEMs, EPCs, operators and end users. I bring separation, filtration and application expertise to help customers understand where contamination risks may arise, evaluate how current filtration strategies are performing and identify potential improvements for testing and validation.
This includes reviewing existing filtration approaches, recommending practical optimization opportunities, advising on suitable technologies and materials of construction, and helping define how filter performance should be measured against required specifications. In practice, I help translate application challenges into filtration approaches that customers can assess using application-specific data.
What's a lesson you've learned from working with OEMs, EPCs and research institutions?
One of the biggest lessons I've learned is the importance of data-driven validation in the adoption of filtration solutions. Even when technology has a strong track record in adjacent industries or similar applications, stakeholders in green hydrogen often need application-specific evidence to support design decisions and build confidence.
Because the industry is still developing, there are fewer long-term operating references available compared with more mature markets. This makes collaborative testing, pilot data and early project learnings especially important. It also reinforces the value of working closely with customers early in the project lifecycle to generate relevant performance data, better understand risk and inform technology selection.
Which solutions do you find yourself discussing most often for green hydrogen applications, and why?
The solutions I discuss most often are related to electrolyte management in alkaline water electrolysis, particularly around potassium hydroxide (KOH).
For customers, this is not just a filtration discussion. It's a broader conversation about reliability, material compatibility, catalyst protection and long-term system performance. KOH is central to the process, but its properties require careful consideration of operating conditions, materials compatibility and potential contamination risks.
This is why it's important for Pall to be involved early in project discussions, when filtration strategy, materials of construction and performance expectations are still being defined. By engaging at this stage, we can help customers evaluate contamination-control requirements and determine where filtration may support system performance.
These discussions also create an important connection between the field and Pall's research and development teams. Customer challenges, operating conditions and performance expectations can be fed back into the product development process, helping inform future work based on the practical needs of green hydrogen applications.
What's the most common misconception you hear about green hydrogen project readiness?
A common misconception is that green hydrogen project readiness is limited primarily by the technical difficulty or cost of producing hydrogen.
While production costs are certainly important, I believe the broader challenge is the pace at which the supporting ecosystem is developing. Large-scale adoption depends not only on producing green hydrogen but also on having the infrastructure to transport, store and distribute it, along with committed off takers that can create stable demand.
Without that demand confidence, it can be difficult for projects to move forward at scale. Some projects may advance as policy, infrastructure and offtake agreements develop, but the pace is likely to remain uneven. Clearer demand signals and credible commercial arrangements may improve the conditions needed for more projects to move forward.
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From supporting electrolyte management strategies to helping customers validate new technologies, Maria's work highlights how filtration expertise can contribute to the technical learning still needed in green hydrogen. As the industry works through the requirements for broader deployment, collaboration, testing and shared operating knowledge will remain important.
By bringing customer challenges from the field back to Pall's teams, Maria helps connect field experience with future development work and build the application knowledge customers need to make better-informed technical decisions.