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Abstract. The presence of hydrogen in steel decreases its toughness and formability leading to hydrogen embrittlement. To understand the failure mechanisms of steel due to the presence of hydrogen, a profound insight in the hydrogen household of the steel is needed. This includes a study of the solubility, the diffusion and the trapping of hydrogen. Next, the absorption and desorption behavior during and after electrolytic charging must be well determined. This was investigated in this research for steels with various types of traps, e.g. dislocations, microcracks, grain boundaries and precipitates such as TiC and Ti 4 C 2 S 2 . The samples were cathodically charged at three different current densities: 0.8mA/cm 2 ; 8.3mA/cm 2 and 62.5mA/cm 2 . It was noticed that the cathodic current density used for hydrogen loading had a great influence on the results. Observation of the samples by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that at the highest current density major damage of the surface had occurred. Hence it was decided to study more systematically the influence of charging current density on the resulting surface aspect and on hydrogen absorption and desorption. The hydrogen charging kinetics, maximum hydrogen solubility and hydrogen desorption behavior have also been evaluated for the different current densities during charging.