Anion Exchange Membrane Water stack based on Earth Abundant 2D Materials for Green Hydrogen Production

Introduction

The baseline technology for green H2 production is water electrolysis (WE). However, roughly 96% of the H2 produced today is from fossil fuels, with the remaining 4% produced through water electrolysis. This is due to the still-high costs and lower performance of current electrolysers compared with other production processes that are not affected by the use of toxic or critical raw materials (CRM).

Need for Development

Therefore, there is a need to boost the development of highly active and efficient catalysts to turn green hydrogen into a viable solution to decarbonise different sectors and to meet the ambitious goals set in the Hydrogen Strategy.

Project Proposal

This project proposes an advanced Anion Exchange Membrane Water Electrolyser (AEMWE) stack as a critical milestone to translate the highly promising results coming from the groundbreaking research conducted during the ERC-StG awarded to Dr. G. Abelln into a marketable innovation.

Novelty of AEMWE Stack

The AEMWE stack's novelty relies on non-toxic CRM-free breakthrough novel electrodes (anodes) made of two-dimensional (2D) nickel-iron layered double hydroxide materials (2D NiFe-LDHs) that have shown outstanding catalytic behaviour. Using this electrocatalytic material will allow overcoming the main challenges of WE to produce green H2.

Project Activities

The activities to be undertaken under the 2D4H2 project are aimed at preparing the translation of the 2D NiFe-LDHs electrocatalytic materials into an AEMWE stack as a precursor of a future fully operational 0.5 kW electrolyser.

Specific Goals

For this purpose, the necessary optimisation and characterisation of the electrocatalyst will be carried out to enable testing and validation in a pilot plant of the single unit cell and the AEMWE stack prototype.

Knowledge Management

Additionally, an integrated strategy for effectively managing the knowledge generated during the project will be developed. This includes:

1. Clarifying the IPR position.
2. Developing an exploitation strategy involving potential stakeholders to evolve the idea further towards exploitation.