Abstract
Meeting a competitive 1$/kg hydrogen cost target for polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) will require advances to significantly reduce capital costs and precious metal catalyst usage, while simultaneously enabling 40,000-80,000 h stack lifetimes under dynamic use conditions. Minimizing cell voltage decay rates is therefore a key goal for PEMWE, although the fundamental processes governing voltage decay are not yet well understood. Here we present a quantitative approach to analyze the contributions to voltage decay in long-term PEMWE testing using polarization curves, impedance spectroscopy, and post-mortem electron microscopy. We apply this approach to analyze a 28 μV h−1 decay rate observed in a 4000 h durability test of a cell using 0.5 mg cm−2 total PGM catalyst loading (0.4 mgIr cm−2 anode, 0.1 mgPt cm−2 cathode) and 3 A cm−2 current density. We also analyze a comparative series of 1000 h tests under different conditions. These results provide valuable insights into anode catalyst degradation processes, as well as transferrable methodology for PEMWE durability research.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 054508 |
| Journal | Journal of the Electrochemical Society |
| Volume | 172 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 1 2025 |
Funding
This work was authored in part by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308. This work was conducted as part of the Hydrogen from Next-generation Electrolyzers of Water (H2NEW) consortium, funded by the U.S. DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO). Electron microscopy research was supported by the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), which is a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. The authors thank Alex Badgett, Colby Smith, Rangachary Mukundan, Guido Bender, Jacob Wrubel, Chaiwat Engtrakul, Ellis Klein, Cole Delery, Christian Milleville, and Megan Holtz for assistance and useful conversations. This work was authored in part by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36–08GO28308. This work was conducted as part of the Hydrogen from Next-generation Electrolyzers of Water (H2NEW) consortium, funded by the U.S. DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO). Electron microscopy research was supported by the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), which is a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. The authors thank Alex Badgett, Colby Smith, Rangachary Mukundan, Guido Bender, Jacob Wrubel, Chaiwat Engtrakul, Ellis Klein, Cole Delery, Christian Milleville, and Megan Holtz for assistance and useful conversations.
Keywords
- corrosion
- electrocatalysis
- energy conversion
- industrial electrolysis