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Membrane Electrode Assemblies for Water Electrolysis using WO 3 ‐Supported Ir x Ru 1‐ x O 2 Catalysts
Author(s) -
Baumann Nils,
Cremers Carsten,
Pinkwart Karsten,
Tübke Jens
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
energy technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.91
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 2194-4296
pISSN - 2194-4288
DOI - 10.1002/ente.201500258
Subject(s) - hydrogen production , electrolysis , anode , high pressure electrolysis , catalysis , chemical engineering , materials science , electrolysis of water , cathode , proton exchange membrane fuel cell , polymer electrolyte membrane electrolysis , membrane , hydrogen , electrode , hydrogen economy , water splitting , high temperature electrolysis , nanotechnology , photocatalysis , chemistry , electrolyte , organic chemistry , engineering , biochemistry
A hydrogen economy is one of the most promising concepts for the future energy infrastructure. The conversion of sunlight into hydrogen (H 2 ) using directly coupled photovoltaics (PV) and a proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolysis cell could compliment the required hydrogen production by using excess renewable electricity. It has many advantages such as producing pure hydrogen at high photon‐to‐chemical energy efficiency and simple technical operation, but it suffers from the high cost of the catalyst. Here we show single‐cell tests using commercial membranes and an in‐house synthesized WO 3 ‐supported Ir x Ru 1‐ x O 2 anode catalyst. The catalyst was synthesized by Adam’s Fusion protocol and loaded onto the support using an annealing procedure. Membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) were prepared using an airbrush spraying technique. The electrolysis activity was greatly increased by adding tungsten carbide (WC) to the support, leading to a higher current density than commercial MEAs; however it also showed very fast degradation, losing most of the activity in minutes. The biggest issue in terms of stability seems to be on the cathode side of the cell.