Breathing life into ocean dead zones using excess oxygen from the super-green hydrogen economy

Oxygen depletion in aquatic ecosystems accelerates biodiversity loss, greenhouse gas emissions, toxic algal blooms, and other water-quality hazards. Dead zones with low oxygen exist in both freshwater and marine environments and are expected to expand with continued eutrophication and climate heating. Small-scale oxygen injection (i.e., oxygenation) to improve water quality is common in freshwater systems, but large-scale oxygenation of ocean dead zones is rare. Fortuitously, renewable energy from green hydrogen production may enable us to breathe life into suffocating ocean dead zones. The electrolysis of seawater generates hydrogen gas, with oxygen gas as a by-product, and this excess oxygen can be used to oxygenate ocean dead zones, creating substantial synergies and co-benefits during the coming clean-energy transition. Leveraging three recently funded projects, this networking grant will bring interdisciplinary researchers from the UK, US and EU together to lay the groundwork for large-scale, follow-on proposals that focus on the clean-energy transition and the potential to restore ocean dead zones using excess oxygen created during the offshore production of super-green hydrogen. The project supports novel collaboration between Prof Little and Dr Bryant, who are leading experts in systems modelling and oxygenation applications, and other international research teams focusing on 1) a system-of-system (SoS) paradigm, 2) restoration of oxygen dead zones, and 3) the new UK hydrogen hub. This highly innovative project has the potential to catalyse a major transformation in regional and global approaches to integrated sustainable energy production and oceanic ecosystem restoration.