Understanding the electrolysis bottleneck for producing green hydrogen fuel
Understanding the electrolysis bottleneck for producing green hydrogen fuel lead image
Hydrogen could be the green fuel of the future. When produced from water via electrolysis, it does not emit any greenhouse gases and can be used in fuel cells to power vehicles and industrial processes or burned directly for household heating.
Yet one step in the hydrogen production process may be holding this green future back. The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is the key to splitting H2O into hydrogen and oxygen, but it is inefficient. In order for hydrogen to be a feasible, large-scale, green energy source, it must produce significantly more energy than it requires to make it.
Vitale-Sullivan et al. investigated the most promising techniques for understanding the OER in order to identify the best catalysts to improve the reaction’s efficiency.
Electrolysis works by running an electric current through water and uses catalysts to facilitate the reaction. The catalysts must survive in highly corrosive conditions with a high voltage applied.
To improve efficiency, it is essential to understand how the oxidizing environment affects the catalysts. New technologies for examining surface transformations such as electron microscopy, vibration spectroscopy, core level spectroscopy, and x-ray diffraction-based methods are promising for studying the reaction in-situ.
Though the authors warn researchers to be mindful of their limitations, they are confident these new technologies can help the design of catalysts that improve the reaction efficiency.
“This electrolysis process, if coupled with electricity generated from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, is completely green,” said author Zhenxing Feng. “The electrolysis process and green hydrogen generated will expedite the decarbonization process of human society to achieve a zero-emission goal.”
Source: “Surface transformations of electrocatalysts during the oxygen evolution reaction,” by Molly E. Vitale-Sullivan, Alvin Chang, Kuan-Hsun Chou, Zhenxing Feng, and Kelsey A. Stoerzinger, Chemical Physics Reviews (2023). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0139558 .
