I-Corps: Active and Durable Alkaline Water Electrolyzer for Cost-effective and Renewable Hydrogen Production

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is it provides an economical and environmentally friendly way for hydrogen production. This emission-free alkaline water electrolysis technology reduces the reliance on fossil fuels and provides a solution to storing renewable energy. It has a good potential to account for more than 15% of hydrogen production that is currently dominated by steam reforming of natural gas. It could produce hydrogen on-demand, on site without the cost of shipping and storage and offer high-purity hydrogen for fuel cells vehicles and other important applications. Therefore, it has the potential to take over the market of electrolyzers and promote the hydrogen economy. Due to the nature of this innovative material, the new robust electrode with outstanding activity and stability would reduce the cost of alkaline electrolysis significantly. This I-Corps project aims to promote alkaline electrolysis with high-performance porous amorphous metal phosphide electrodes for water oxidation, the key half-cell reaction in electrolytic hydrogen production. The electrode exhibits large surface area, excellent conductivity, outstanding corrosion resistance and good mechanical properties. More importantly, the electrode shows drastically higher activity in water oxidation than state-of-art powder electrode, with less than 200 mV overpotential being needed to achieve a 10 mA/cm2 reaction activity. Besides, the electrode was demonstrated to have remarkable durability with minimal activity decay under long-term operation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.