Intensification of alkaline electrolyzer with improved two-phase flow

Abstract

Green hydrogen produced through water electrolysis offers a promising pathway to global decarbonization. Among various electrolyzers, alkaline water electrolysis (AWE) is the most established and commercially mature. To reduce the cost of hydrogen production from AWE, it is crucial to increase operational current density while maintaining or lowering voltage to increase hydrogen yield and reduce energy consumption. Such efforts are focused on reducing the ohmic resistance at high current densities through the implementation of alkaline membranes. However, this work underlines that the ohmic resistance at high current densities is also influenced by the losses associated with the evolution of bubbles at the electrode surface and two-phase mass transfer. This is shown by investigating the impact of tortuosity and bubble point of porous electrodes on AWE performance. Low-tortuosity porous nickel electrodes are fabricated and analyzed for their ability to reduce capillary pressure and bubble point, resulting in lower energy losses and improved efficiency. The cell reaches an industrially appealing relevant current density of 2 A cm−2 at ≈2 V. Besides test in single cells, the advantageous effect of these low tortuosity porous nickel electrodes are also validated in a kW-class AWE stack, confirming their effectiveness in enhancing overall system performance.