Proton exchange membrane-like alkaline water electrolysis using flow-engineered three-dimensional electrodes.

For high rate water electrolysers, minimising Ohmic losses through efficient gas bubble evacuation away from the active electrode is as important as minimising activation losses by improving the electrode's electrocatalytic properties. In this work, by a combined experimental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach, we identify the topological parameters of flow-engineered 3-D electrodes that direct their performance towards enhanced bubble evacuation. In particular, we show that integrating Ni-based foam electrodes into a laterally-graded bi-layer zero-gap cell configuration allows for alkaline water electrolysis to become Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM)-like, even when keeping a state-of-the-art Zirfon diaphragm.

Towards Replacing Titanium with Copper in the Bipolar Plates for Proton Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis.

For proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) to become competitive, the cost of stack components, such as bipolar plates (BPP), needs to be reduced. This can be achieved by using coated low-cost materials, such as copper as alternative to titanium. Herein we report on highly corrosion-resistant copper BPP coated with niobium.

Improving plasma sprayed Raney-type nickel-molybdenum electrodes towards high-performance hydrogen evolution in alkaline medium.

Rationally designed free-standing and binder-free Raney-type nickel-molybdenum (Ni-Mo) electrodes produced via atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) are developed by correlating APS process parameters with the microstructure of electrodes and their electrochemical performance in alkaline media. The results revealed that the electrode morphology and elemental composition are highly affected by the plasma parameters during the electrode fabrication. It is found that increasing plasma gas flow rate and input plasma power resulted in higher in-flight particle velocities and shorter dwell time, which in result delivered electrodes with much finer structure exhibiting homogeneous distribution of phases, larger quantity of micro pores and suitable content of Ni and Mo.