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Vertically aligned carbon nanofibers promise more cost-efficient PEM water electrolyzers
Research paper published in the proceedings at ICE 2021, the 3rd International Conference on Electrolysis June 20 – 23, 2022 Golden, Colorado USA.
PEMWE is recognized as a key technology for sustainable hydrogen production. However, the necessity of using platinum group metals (PGMs) as catalysts sets up a barrier for establishing GW-scale systems. Especially on the anode side for oxygen evolution, the loading of iridium catalyst must be reduced significantly from currently 2 mgIr cm‑2 to 0.05 mgIr cm‑2 level to enable large scale application of PEMWE [1]. Even though substantial progress has been made, there remain tremendous challenges to make PEMWE work at ultra-low loadings in practice.
Vertically aligned carbon nanofibers (CNF) create low-tortuosity conducting 3D nanostructures over porous transport layers (PTLs), acting as supports for ultra-low loading of iridium catalyst with non-compromised performance. Proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) is envisaged to be more efficient using such advanced PTLs.
Read more on: https://learn.mines.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ICE2021_ProgramComplete01.with-links.6.17.22.pdf (page 24–25).
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