Ionic Liquid Electrolytes for Intermediate-Temperature Electrolysers

While the first fuel cell-propelled cars are expected on UK roads in 2015, their success depends to a very large extent on the widespread availability of pure hydrogen fuel and a fuelling infrastructure. The UK government recently announced the provision of £11M for the roll-out of a hydrogen fuelling infrastructure, but hydrogen is currently generated industrially by steam reforming natural gas, an unsustainable process that co-generates carbon dioxide and contributes to global warming. Electrolysis of water is by far the most sustainable method for generating pure hydrogen and the major technologies under development are (i) alkaline electrolysis, (ii) high temperature solid oxide electrolysis, and (iii) proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis. However, each of these technologies suffers from serious economic, technological, and/or safety limitations.

Intermediate-temperature PEM electrolysers operate in the temperature range 150-300 celsius and offer significant advantages over other electrolysers, including potentially lower running costs, the ability to deliver compressed hydrogen, and high thermodynamic efficiencies. However, to capitalise on these advantages, a number of issues must still be addressed; in particular, the performance and stabilities of PEMs in the intermediate-temperature range must be improved and the reliance of these devices on noble-metal catalysts must be mitigated. In this project, we aim to solve both of these problems by developing a new generation of PEM electrolysers that contain proton-conducting ionic liquids as the electrolyte. The use of these materials as proton conductors within PEMs will allow us to use non-precious, Earth-abundant electrocatalysts to effect hydrogen and oxygen evolution, and to solve the stability issues hampering state-of-the-art PEM electrolysers, advances that will lead to a step-change in PEM electrolyser technology.

The development of economically-viable methods for generating hydrogen fuel is widely acknowledged as one of the major milestones that will mitigate climate change and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Electrolysis of water can produce the highly pure hydrogen needed for proton exchange membrane fuel cells but but state-of-the-art electrolysers remain hampered by serious performance problems. Success in this project will represent a significant breakthrough compared to the state of the art, and could usher in a new era of clean power generation using high performance fuel cells. Consequently, our project will have wide-ranging impacts across society, academia, industry and financial sectors. These impacts are far-reaching; the EPSRC leads the energy theme for the UK while Japan, Germany and the USA have all invested heavily in hydrogen research via major research programmes.

To maximise impact, we will exploit Nottingham's and Newcastle's links with local SMEs and companies such as Rolls Royce and Honda, while our project already benefits from strong support from ITM Power, one of the leaders in proton exchange membrane electrolysis technology (see attached letter of support). Exploitation of the potential commercial and non-commercial outputs of the research will be managed by Nottingham's Business Partnership Unit (BPU) and the Science, Agriculture and Engineering Enterprise Team at Newcastle, each of which has extensive experience of successfully negotiating contracts in areas such as collaboration, confidentiality, material transfer and licensing. Since 2008, the BPU has filed 10 patent applications (including one in the area of heterogeneous catalyst development by PI Walsh), negotiated two licence deals, and secured £733,000 of funding to pursue product commercialisation. In the last 12 years, the BPU has also assisted in the formation of 5 spinout companies (e.g., Promethean Particles) to exploit IP from the School of Chemistry. In addition, the Research and Enterprise Services at Newcastle has filed 26 patent filings and assisted in the formation of 9 spin-out companies, including Newcell Technologies Ltd., of which PI Scott is the Science Director. The BPU also runs a Business Science Fellow (BSF) programme that employs postdoctoral scientists and engineers to progress a portfolio of knowledge exchange projects whilst receiving training to develop their entrepreneurial skills. In collaboration with the PIs and Dr. Trevor Farren, who leads the BPU, a dedicated BSF will identify and develop opportunities for knowledge exchange as the project proceeds.

There is a need to attract more young people into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects. As this project addresses the challenges of climate change and energy conversion, each of which is of passionate interest to large sections of the general public, we have a real opportunity to communicate our science to the public. Engagement with the general public, students, and schoolchildren will be undertaken by the PIs, CIs, and PDRAs via an extended outreach programme including a wide range of schools lectures, open days, and public demonstrations, all of which will be coordinated by a Dr. Samantha Tang, Public Awareness Scientist at Nottingham and Dr. Eve Simcox, Faculty Research Impact Officer at Newcastle. PI Walsh is highly active in public engagement; he regularly performs public demonstration lectures (e.g., at the Big Bang Fair at the NEC, Birmingham) in and he is a presenter on the award-winning Periodic Table of Videos YouTube channel, which, as of the 7th of January 2016, has 701,164 subscribers and has been viewed over 116 million times (www.youtube.com/periodicvideos). He has also been invited to speak on the topic of public engagement and science education at the Bibliothéque Solvay, Brussels, and at Chem Ed New Zealand and, by continuing activities such as these, we will maximise the educational impact of the project.