Water electrolyzers for green hydrogen production from impure water sources

Team: Thomas Jaramillo, Adam Nielander, Michaela Stevens, Joseph Perryman, Daniela Marin, Shannon Boettcher
Mid-range (Developing)

The goal of this project is to enable the global-scale, decentralized production of valuable fuels and chemicals such as hydrogen (H2). The approach is to develop water electrolyzer technologies that can make direct use of impure water feedstocks, such as seawater, thereby obviating the need for costly purification processes and providing a pathway to scale. 

This project addresses three technical challenges related to emerging bipolar membrane water electrolyzer technologies: improve device durability with impure water feedstocks at commercially relevant current densities (at least 500 milliamps per square centimeter), pinpoint device loss mechanisms with impure water to inform more resilient designs, and examine Earth-abundant anode catalysts that are more scalable than conventional precious-metal catalysts. 

Device durability in saltwater increased by a factor of 40 compared to the team’s initial designs, and studies showed that inexpensive NiFeCo catalysts performed comparably to conventional (and much more expensive) iridium oxide anodes.

Building on support from the Sustainability Accelerator and the Office of Naval Research, this project will develop compact, robust bipolar membrane seawater electrolyzers that can generate hundreds of grams of H2 per day. The ultimate aim is to demonstrate high-pressure H2 production for scaled applications.