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

这个i-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是，它为氢气生产提供了一种经济和环保的方式。这种零排放碱性水电解技术减少了对化石燃料的依赖，并提供了一种储存可再生能源的解决方案。它有很好的潜力，占目前以天然气蒸汽重整为主的氢气产量的15%以上。它可以按需在现场生产氢气，而不需要运输和储存成本，并为燃料电池汽车和其他重要应用提供高纯度氢气。因此，它有潜力接管电解槽市场，促进氢经济。由于这种创新材料的性质，具有出色的活性和稳定性的新的坚固的电极将显著降低碱性电解的成本。这个I-Corps项目旨在用高性能的多孔非晶态金属磷化物电极促进碱性电解，用于水氧化，这是电解氢生产中的关键半电池反应。该电极具有较大的比表面积、良好的导电性、优异的耐腐蚀性和良好的机械性能。更重要的是，该电极在水氧化反应中表现出比最先进的粉末电极高得多的活性，达到10 mA/cm2的反应活性所需的过电位低于200 mV。此外，该电极被证明在长期运行下具有显著的耐用性和最小的活性衰减。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.