Renewable, or green, hydrogen will play a critical role in the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors and will therefore be important in limiting global warming.
However, renewable hydrogen is not cost-competitive with fossil fuels, due to the moderate energy efficiency and high capital costs of traditional water electrolysers.
Here a unique concept of water electrolysis is introduced, wherein water is supplied to hydrogen- and oxygen-evolving electrodes via capillary-induced transport along a porous inter-electrode separator, leading to inherently bubble-free operation at the electrodes.
An alkaline capillary-fed electrolysis cell of this type demonstrates water electrolysis performance exceeding commercial electrolysis cells, with a cell voltage at 0.5 A cm−2 and 85 °C of only 1.51 V, equating to 98% energy efficiency, with an energy consumption of 40.4 kWh/kg hydrogen (vs. ~47.5 kWh/kg in commercial electrolysis cells).
High energy efficiency, combined with the promise of a simplified balance-of-plant, brings cost-competitive renewable hydrogen closer to reality.
Introduction
Anthropogenic climate change, driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels, poses a global existential threat. This has motivated a growing number of nations and corporations to aim for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 to limit global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels1,2.
A critical element of the future net-zero world will be renewable hydrogen, or green hydrogen, produced by water electrolysis powered by renewable electricity, such as solar and wind.
The electrolysis of water requires the input of electrical energy and heat energy, resulting in the evolution, from water, of hydrogen gas at the cathode and oxygen gas at the anode according to:2H2O(l)⇌2H2(g)+O2(g)E0=−1.229V2H2O(l)⇌2H2(g)+O2(g)E0=−1.229V
Green hydrogen will be essential to the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors such as steel manufacture, long-haul transport, shipping and aviation1,2,3. It may also be used for the seasonal storage of renewable electricity1 and as a chemical feedstock.
However, the levelised cost of green hydrogen (LCOH) is presently not competitive with fossil fuels. This is due to the high capital expenditure (CAPEX) and high operational expenditure (OPEX) of present-day water electrolysers.
The OPEX is, by far, the larger component of LCOH and it is dominated by the overall energy efficiency of the water electrolyser and the cost of the input renewable electricity to which it applies2.
At sub-MW scale, state-of-the-art commercial water electrolysers typically require ~53 kWh of electricity to produce 1 kg of hydrogen, which contains 39.4 kWh of energy, according to its higher heating value (HHV)2.
Of that, the electrolysis cell, which is ~83% energy efficient (HHV) at the operating current density, consumes ~47.5 kWh, with the engineering system, known as the balance-of-plant, consuming the remaining ~5.5 kWh2.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has set a 2050 target2 to decrease cell energy consumption to <42 kWh/kg. Any improvements in net energy efficiency create a proportionally equivalent decrease in the levelised cost of the produced hydrogen .
This work introduces a unique concept of water electrolysis that promises notably reduced CAPEX and OPEX compared to conventional water electrolysers, making renewable hydrogen more cost-competitive with fossil fuels.
Inspired by the historic evolution of water electrolysis cells, which recently culminated in asymmetric polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) cells that directly produce one of the gases in a gas collection chamber rather than bubbling through the liquid electrolyte8, we have developed a capillary-fed electrolysis (CFE) cell concept in which both gases are produced directly in gas collection chambers .
The aqueous electrolyte is constantly supplied to the electrodes by a spontaneous capillary action in the porous, hydrophilic, inter-electrode separator. The bottom end of the separator is dipped in a reservoir, resulting in capillary-induced, upward, in-plane, movement of electrolyte. Porous gas diffusion electrodes are held against opposite sides of the separator, above the level of the electrolyte.
The electrodes draw in liquid laterally from the separator and are covered with a thin layer of the electrolyte. The application of sufficient voltage between the electrodes results in the electrolysis of water, which is continuously replenished by water moving up the separator from the reservoir.
Because the generated hydrogen and oxygen gases readily migrate through the thin layer of liquid electrolyte covering their respective electrodes, the capillary-fed cell concept provides for bubble-free electrolysis in which water is converted directly to the bulk gases without forming gas bubbles.
Inspired by the historic evolution of water electrolysis cell architectures culminating in the direct production of one of the gases, the Capillary-Fed Electrolysis cell directly produces both gases.
Liquid electrolyte is continuously drawn up the separator by a capillary effect, from a reservoir at the bottom of the cell. The porous, hydrophilic separator sustains the flow rate required for water electrolysis.
In so doing, the cell avoids bubbles masking the electrodes and maintains access to the catalytic sites on the electrodes. This includes access to the most active crevice, cleft and defect sites that are the first to be blocked by bubble formation, sometimes permanently so14.
It also ensures that water flow to an electrode does not counteract gas flow away from the electrode, thereby avoiding the counter multiphase flows inherent in conventional water electrolysers and their associated mass transport limitations.
In diminishing the energy needed to overcome such inefficiencies, the capillary-fed cell realises significantly improved energy efficiency.
It is also important to assess whether new cell configurations increase or decrease the complexity (i.e. the energy consumption and CAPEX) of the balance-of-plant. In the case of CFE cells, notable simplifications in the balance-of-plant are apparent.
The absence of gas bubbles and associated gas-liquid froth formation in the cell stack, removes the need for liquid circulation, eliminating the gas-liquid separator tanks normally required and their piping, pumps, and fittings.
The high energy efficiency, further, permits air-cooling, or radiative self-cooling, eliminating need for water-cooled chillers. The small volumes of liquid electrolyte in each cell reservoir decrease the overall volume of water required.
Unwanted and wasteful shunt currents found in conventional alkaline water electrolysers, may also be avoided. These simplifications in the balance-of-plant lead to downward pressure on electrolyser CAPEX.
The capillary-induced flow of aqueous 27 wt% KOH electrolyte up a saturated, hydrophilic, porous, polyether sulfone (PES) separator is initially measured and modelled, demonstrating its ability to indefinitely support water electrolysis at 1 A cm−2 and ≥80 °C for a height of up to 18 cm.
This height restriction, which is created by gravity, is considered here, although it may in future be avoided by locating the reservoir at the top of the separator.
In this work we show that a capillary-fed cell, employing a known NiFeOOH oxygen evolution electrocatalyst on the anode and Pt/C hydrogen evolution electrocatalyst on the cathode, tested at 80–85 °C with 27 wt% KOH electrolyte, yields water electrolysis with performance that exceeds conventional, bubbled control cells, and commercial alkaline and PEM cells.
Faradaic efficiencies approach 100%, with low gas crossover. Cell energy efficiencies at 85 °C of 95% (HHV) at 0.8 A cm−2 and 100% (HHV) at 0.3 A cm−2 (39.4–41.6 kWh kg−1 H2) surpass the IRENA 2050 target and combine with the promise of a simplified balance-of-plant to bring cost-competitive renewable hydrogen closer to reality.
Source: Nature
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