11.02.2026
On Wednesday, February 11, we commemorate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Many female scientists work, for example, at the Technical University of Liberec, where they focus on hydrogen research. Kateřina Černá and her team are investigating where in Europe hydrogen can be stored so that bacteria do not consume it. The research is part of the international HyLife project, in which scientists are working with the largest dataset ever used in this field.
“This is a flow box where we work with bacteria so that we don’t spread them throughout the laboratory. Our task is to find out under what conditions and to what extent stored hydrogen is consumed by bacteria,” says Kateřina Černá from the Department of Applied Biology. On the table in front of her are several small bottles containing groundwater samples from various parts of Europe. “From this water, we then conduct different laboratory tests,” she adds for Czech Radio Liberec.
Hydrogen is a very valuable resource for the energy industry. It is already used to a limited extent as a renewable energy source, but it needs to be produced on a large scale and stored somewhere, similarly to natural gas.
“These can be various geological formations that are sufficiently sealed to prevent gases from escaping. Another option is newly leached salt caverns. Salt formations are mostly located along the coasts of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, where underground caves or storage spaces are artificially created and are then very tightly sealed,” explains Černá. “I have a whole syringe filled with nitrogen. I release it, insert it into the sample through the rubber septum of the bottle, and now I can take a sample,” describes Černá’s colleague Kristýna Fadrhonc as she collects the sample.
Gas detection
The two samples are then sent to the gas chromatography laboratory. Lucie Cádrová extracts gas from the water bottle. “I prepare a sterile needle, which draws a defined amount of air. The gases being produced are detected there, which we need to monitor,” says Cádrová.
Based on how quickly bacteria consume hydrogen, the researchers determine whether a particular environment is suitable for storage.
“In some of the most active samples, we observed complete hydrogen consumption within just a few days,” adds Černá, who, together with her team, also studies hydrogen that naturally occurs in the environment.
