Development of Electrode Materials and Membrane Electrode Assembly for AEM Water Electrolyser Cell for Green Hydrogen Production

Hydrogen is expected to play a key role in meeting the need for clean fuel for both energy storage and transport requirements. Presently, > 95% of H2 production comes from fossil fuel feedstock using gas phase reactions at high temperature. In contrast to this technology, water electrolysis provides a clean route to hydrogen from water without the consumption of fossil fuel or the emission of CO2; if the electricity comes from renewable energy sources, water electrolysis becomes a truly green technology. There are currently two main established types of water electrolysers: proton exchange membrane water electrolysers (PEMWEs), which feature a compact, 'zero-gap' design that enables efficient and responsive production of high purity hydrogen but are hampered by expensive material costs such as platinum group metals (PGMs), titanium, and Nafion membranes; and alkaline water electrolysers (AWE), which utilise cheaper materials such as first-row transition metals but suffer from lower efficiencies, product purity and responsiveness. Anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE) is an emerging technology that aims to combine the benefits of the two established water electrolyser technologies while negating their various disadvantages, specifically, utilising the zero-gap design found in PEMWE, which enables efficient operation at high current densities, while employing the cheaper, transition metal-based electrode materials used in AWE, to create an electrolyser that is able to produce cost-competitive, high purity green hydrogen. This project aims to further develop some of the key components of an AEMWE cell: electrode materials, consisting of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts and a porous transport layer (PTL) primarily for use on the anode side of the electrolyser cell; and the membrane electrode assembly (MEA), which can be thought of as the heart of the cell and has a large impact on both the performance and durability of the cell.