Engineered Thin Diffusion Layers for Anion-Exchange Membrane Electrolyzer Cells with Outstanding Performance

• Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces Vol. 13; no. 43
• Main Authors: Li, Kui, Yu, Shule, Li, Dongguo, Ding, Lei, Wang, Weitian, Xie, Zhiqiang, Park, Eun Joo, Fujimoto, Cy, Cullen, David A., Kim, Yu Seung, Zhang, Feng-Yuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society (ACS) 19.10.2021
• Subjects: anion exchange membrane; electrolyzer cells; gas diffusion electrode; hydrogen production; INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; liquid/gas diffusion layers; water splitting
• ISSN: 1944-8244; 1944-8252

Anion-exchange membrane electrolyzer cells (AEMECs) are one of the most promising technologies for carbon-neutral hydrogen production. Over the past few years, the performance and durability of AEMECs have substantially improved. Herein, we report an engineered liquid/gas diffusion layer (LGDL) with tunable pore morphologies that enables the high performance of AEMECs. The comparison with a commercial titanium foam in the electrolyzer indicated that the engineered LGDL with thin-flat and straight-pore structures significantly improved the interfacial contacts, mass transport, and activation of more reaction sites, leading to outstanding performance. We obtained a current density of 2.0 A/cm2 at 1.80 V with an efficiency of up to 81.9% at 60 °C under 0.1 M NaOH-fed conditions. The as-achieved high performance in this study provides insight to design advanced LGDLs for the production of low-cost and high-efficiency AEMECs.