Scalable metamaterial thermally sprayed catalyst coatings for nuclear reactor high temperature solid oxide steam electrolysis (METASIS)

英国政府制定了一个雄心勃勃的目标，即到2050年实现净零排放。氢被认为是满足目标的能量矢量。然而，要生产出足够的绿色氢来实现这一目标，还需要技术上的一步变革。将固体氧化物蒸汽电解（SOSE）的高活性电极层与核电站产生的废蒸汽相结合，是绿色制氢最有前途的新途径之一。该项目将通过设计、制造和测试用于固体氧化物蒸汽电解（SOSE）的热喷涂（空气等离子喷涂）电极（管状电池设计）的新型超表面涂层，为零排放氢气生产开发一种先进的解决方案。虽然电极的超表面设计是新的，但管状电池设计近年来受到越来越多的关注，并且在不同的电极几何设计中，管状设计提供了几个优点（例如，减轻了与高温密封相关的问题，因为密封件可以放置在高温区域之外，可以具有高活性表面积，可以抵抗热循环等）。为了实现这一目标，我们需要对高温（例如700-900℃）蒸汽部署应用的电解槽新设计进行基准测试。设计将包括对电池的结构（有限元分析）和计算流体动力学分析，并对其操作配置进行理解，重点关注结构和热机械载荷、附带载荷和耐久性，包括对各种载荷（例如压力波动、温度和机械应力）的响应。材料在电解中起着重要的作用，因此在制造丝网印刷/旋转涂层方法以及适当的烧结工艺时，需要考虑不同的电极/电解质材料。随后，电池（管状样品作为测试联片电极）将使用电解质的组合制造。采用热喷涂（空气等离子喷涂或APS）技术将阴极作为工业设施的超表面，从材料选择清单中选择阴极和阳极。然后，我们将使用最佳的设计和材料选择制作固体氧化物蒸汽电解槽原型。我们将评估单管式电池组件的模块化设计（小容器）的整体可行性。单管组件（或电解槽）将在高达900℃的温度下进行测试，并将建立超表面设计与材料之间的相关性，以获得最佳效率，包括建立氧化还原/传输过程和电化学反应的机制。最后，我们将展示材料，电池设计和操作参数对效率的影响。开发具有增强制氢能力的电解槽及其可扩展的制造，不仅可以在实现生态友好发展方面发挥重要作用，还可以实现成本效益、可靠和可持续的机遇。这个项目有潜力推进生产绿色氢的技术，因此我们将通过一个分拆公司或许可来利用这些成果，将产品商业化。

The UK government has set an ambitious target of reaching net-Zero by 2050. Hydrogen has been considered to the energy vector to meet the target. However, a step change in technology is needed to produce enough green hydrogen to meet the target. One of the most promising new avenues for green hydrogen production is to combine the development of a highly active electrode layers for solid oxide steam electrolysis (SOSE) with the waste steam generated from nuclear power plant. This project will develop an advance solution for zero emission hydrogen production by designing, fabricating, and testing thermally sprayed (air plasma spray) novel metasurface coatings of electrodes (tubular cell design) for solid oxide steam electrolysis (SOSE). While metasurface design for electrode is new, the tubular cell design has received increased attention in recent years, and among the different geometric design of electrode, the tubular design offers several advantages (e.g., alleviates issues associated with high temperature sealing as seals can be placed outside of high temperature zone, can have high active surface area, can be robust against thermal cycling, etc). To achieve this, we need to benchmark the new design of electrolyser for high temperature (e.g., 700-900 C) steam deployment applications. The design will include structural (finite element analysis) and computational fluid dynamics analysis of the cell and develop understanding of its operational configurations with focus on structural and thermo-mechanical loads, incidental loads, and durability, including responses to the various loads (e.g., pressure fluctuations, temperature, and mechanical stresses). The material plays an important part in electrolysis, and therefore different electrode/electrolyte materials will be considered while manufacturing screen printing/spin coating method along with appropriate sintering processes. Following which, the cell (tubular samples as test coupon electrodes) will be fabricated using a combination of electrolyte. cathode, and anode from the materials list of choice using thermal spray (air plasma spray or APS) technique with cathode as metasurface at an industrial facility. We will then make solid oxide steam electrolyser prototype using the best design and materials choices. We will assess the overall viability of a modular design (a small container) with single tubular cell assembly. The single tubular assembly (or the electrolyser) will be tested at temperature as high as 900 C and will establish correlation between metasurface design and materials for optimum efficiency, including establishing mechanism of redox/transport processes and electro-chemical reactions. And finally, we will demonstrate the effect of materials, cell design and operational parameters on efficiency. Developing electrolyser cells with enhanced hydrogen production and their scalable manufacturing can play an important role in enabling not only eco-friendly development but also cost-effective, reliable, and sustainable opportunities. This project has the potential to advance technology to produce green hydrogen and thus we will exploit the outcomes through a spin-out company or licensing to commercialise the product.