Highly quaternized polystyrene ionomers for high performance anion exchange membrane water electrolysers

Highly quaternized polystyrene ionomers for high performance anion exchange membrane water electrolysers

Alkaline anion exchange membrane (AEM) electrolysers to produce hydrogen from water are still at an early stage of development, and their performance is far lower than that of systems based on proton exchange membranes. Here, we report an ammonium-enriched anion exchange ionomer that improves the pe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature energy Vol. 5; no. 5; pp. 378 - 385
Main Authors: Li, Dongguo, Park, Eun Joo, Zhu, Wenlei, Shi, Qiurong, Zhou, Yang, Tian, Hangyu, Lin, Yuehe, Serov, Alexey, Zulevi, Barr, Baca, Ehren Donel, Fujimoto, Cy, Chung, Hoon T., Kim, Yu Seung
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01-05-2020
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects:
639/301/299/161/886
639/301/923/1028
639/4077/909/4086/4087
Ammonium
Anion exchange
Anion exchanging
Binders
Catalysts
Developmental stages
Economics and Management
Electrodes
Energy
Energy Policy
Energy Storage
Energy Systems
Hydrogen
Ionomers
Iron compounds
Membranes
Nickel compounds
Oxygen evolution reactions
Performance enhancement
Polystyrene
Polystyrene resins
Protons
Renewable and Green Energy
Rotating disks
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Summary:Alkaline anion exchange membrane (AEM) electrolysers to produce hydrogen from water are still at an early stage of development, and their performance is far lower than that of systems based on proton exchange membranes. Here, we report an ammonium-enriched anion exchange ionomer that improves the performance of an AEM electrolyser to levels approaching that of state-of-the-art proton exchange membrane electrolysers. Using rotating-disk electrode experiments, we show that a high pH (>13) in the electrode binder is the critical factor for improving the activity of the hydrogen- and oxygen-evolution reactions in AEM electrolysers. Based on this observation, we prepared and tested several quaternized polystyrene electrode binders in an AEM electrolyser. Using the binder with the highest ionic concentration and a NiFe oxygen evolution catalyst, we demonstrated performance of 2.7 A cm −2 at 1.8 V without a corrosive circulating alkaline solution. The limited durability of the AEM electrolyser remains a challenge to be addressed in the future. Anion exchange membrane water electrolysers have potential cost advantages over proton exchange membrane electrolysers, but their performance has lagged behind. Here the authors investigate the cause of the poor performance of anion exchange membrane electrolysers and design ionomers that can overcome some of the challenges.
ISSN:2058-7546
2058-7546
DOI:10.1038/s41560-020-0577-x