Hydrogen has recently gained a lot of interest as a possible source of clean energy as a replacement for fossil fuels. Active research is being conducted, and water electrolysis methods that allow hydrogen to be collected from water without producing greenhouse gases are being developed, in order to get hydrogen without affecting the environment.
The present water proton exchange membrane electrolyzer (PEMWE) technology employs costly noble metal catalysts and perfluorocarbon proton exchange membranes. The high cost of manufacturing the system is due to this technology. Researchers have created a membrane electrode assembly for anion exchange membrane water electrolyzers (AEMWE), which is expected to replace the pricey existing technology, in order to overcome the limitations that restrict the adoption of traditional technology.
AEMWE’s revolutionary technology avoids the need for pricey platinum group metal electrodes and uses iron instead of titanium for the separation plate material. The cost of manufacture is lowered by roughly 3,000 times when comparing the costs of catalyst and separator material alone, compared to conventional devices. However, due to its limited performance relative to existing devices and low durability, such a less expensive device has not been employed commercially (less than 100 hours of continuous operation). New anion exchange materials with strong ionic conductivity and endurance were used by the study team. A novel membrane-electrode assembly was built using these materials. The developed material demonstrated sustained workability for over 1000 hours and set a new cell performance record of 7.68 A/cm 2. This is around six times higher than existing anion exchange materials and 1.2 times more than commercial technology based on pricey materials (6 A/m 2).
The new technology has addressed core material performance and durability difficulties, which had previously been recognized as limits in AEMWE technology, and has enhanced performance to the point where it can replace existing technology. The researchers hope that this breakthrough will pave the way for the adoption of next-generation water electrolysis technology, which would lower the cost of manufacturing green hydrogen dramatically. They also believe that the new material will be used in hydrogen fuel cells and carbon capture systems.
