Novel Materials in Alkaline Water Electrolysis

地球仪各国都面临着与不可再生能源储量减少、温室气体生产造成的环境污染以及气候变化的负面影响有关的重大社会挑战。开发替代的清洁能源如氢的广泛努力已经变得越来越重要。风能、太阳能和水力发电在被称为电解器的装置中用于将水电化学分解为氧气和氢气（H2O = H2 + 1/2 O2）时，有可能应对这些挑战。加拿大仍然是氢（H2）生产技术的主要参与者（例如电解器、斯图尔特能源、氢动力学、Next Hydrogen）。 目前的聚合物电解质膜水电解槽电池利用贵金属（例如铂）来催化这些水裂解反应。尽管在这方面取得了重大进展，但高材料成本和长期服务可靠性问题使得这种装置昂贵。 因此，对于未来水电解槽的开发来说，开发完全消除对贵金属的需求的设备技术是必要的。 最具挑战性的关键反应是从水中析氧反应（OER）。特别是，钴合金的结构和化学性质的改变已经证明它们是碱性环境中低成本OER电催化剂的最佳替代品之一。 然而，即使是这些材料中最好的材料仍然必须克服OER反应的高功率要求和差的反应速率，这表明对新材料的根本需求。该提案旨在开发新的低成本、稳定可靠的非晶态金属钴基电催化剂，以克服下一代阴离子交换膜碱性水电解槽中氧气析出的这些限制，从而提高加拿大的竞争力。 预计NSERC的这项发现补助金将产生变革性的、改变范式的研究成果，重点关注加拿大是或可以成为世界领导者的制氢领域。研究生和本科生参与研究计划将接受批判性思维和解决问题的高质量的多学科培训，涵盖化学，物理，工程和计算/数学建模。在全球范围内，它响应了快速变化的社会和市场对清洁能源解决方案的需求。这个高素质人员团队的协调一致，全面的努力将导致在5年结束时碱性水电解槽的可行原型，这将有助于加拿大满足我们不断增长的能源需求，同时也确保环境管理。

Countries around the globe face significant societal challenges linked to declining reserves of non-renewable energy sources, environmental pollution associated with greenhouse gas production, and the negative impacts of climate change. Extensive efforts to develop alternative, clean sources of energy such as hydrogen have become of ever increasing importance. Wind, solar and hydroelectric power, when used in the electrochemical splitting of water into oxygen and hydrogen (H2O = H2 + 1/2 O2) in a device known as an electrolyser, has the potential to meet these challenges. Canada continues to be a key player in technologies for hydrogen (H2) production (e.g. Electrolyser, Stuart Energy, Hydrogenics, Next Hydrogen). Current polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolyser cells utilize precious metals (e.g. platinum) to catalyze these water splitting reactions. In spite of significant progress on this front, high material costs and long term service reliability issues make such devices expensive. Consequently, it is imperative for the development of future water electrolysers to develop device technologies that completely eliminate the need for precious metals. The key reaction that has proven most challenging is the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) from water. In particular, modifications of the structure and chemistry of cobalt alloys have proven them to be amongst the best alternatives for low cost OER electrocatalysts in alkaline based environments. However, even the best of these materials still have to overcome high power requirements and poor reaction rates for the OER reaction indicating a fundamental need for new materials. This proposal is targeted at developing new low cost, stable and reliable, amorphous metal Co-base electrocatalysts to overcome these limitations in the evolution of oxygen in next generation anion exchange membrane alkaline water electrolysers to enhance Canadian competitiveness. This NSERC Discovery grant is anticipated to produce transformative, paradigm-changing research outcomes, focusing on the area of hydrogen production in which Canada is or can be a world leader. Graduate and undergraduate students participating in the research program will receive high-quality multidisciplinary training in critical thinking and problem solving, spanning chemistry, physics, engineering, and computing / mathematical modeling. In a global context, it responds to the needs of a rapidly-changing society and market demand for clean energy solutions. The concerted, comprehensive effort of this team of highly qualified personnel will lead to viable prototypes of alkaline water electrolysers at the end of the 5 years which will assist Canada in meeting our growing energy demand while also ensuring environmental stewardship.