A bibliometric study on research trends in hydrogen safety

Hydrogen plays an increasingly significant role in solving the greenhouse effect and energy crisis as a clean fuel that can be obtained by renewable energy, and as a storable energy carrier. As a prerequisite for process safety of hydrogen, issues such as hydrogen embrittlement, fire, and explosion, have been of great interest to research scholars for decades. Based on bibliometrics, this article aims to provide a knowledge structure of publications related to hydrogen safety. Information about 369, 535 and 462 publications related to hydrogen safety from 1957 to 2021 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, and Lens, respectively. The visualization software VOSviewer was employed to carry out the bibliometric analysis. The study found that the USA has the most publications among all countries; the publications from the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy rank the first among all source journals. Based on the advancement of time period, the hot terms in hydrogen safety research can be divided into three themes: storage and detection, combustion and explosion, and ignition and propagation. The results provide a comprehensive overview of this field of research and can help researchers quickly understand the research frontier and the overall status.