Developing catalysts for green hydrogen production from low-grade water electrolysis

直接使用低品位水生产绿色氢气，消除了现有电解槽所需的水净化技术，从而扩大了绿色氢气技术的全球覆盖范围。然而，使用低品位水的长期挑战是其中的离子和污染物对催化剂的稳定性、活性和选择性的有害影响。催化剂在这些环境中的性能差直接影响到装置的效率和使用寿命。为了设计更灵活、更有弹性的水电解系统，我们需要对催化剂材料在恶劣操作环境下的性能有一个基本的了解，并利用这些信息来合理设计新的催化剂。通过这个项目，我们将阐明控制低品位水电解催化剂稳定性和活性的关键因素。该项目将涉及(A)催化剂的合成和表征(B)电化学性能的基准确定(C)操作光学和X射线光谱分析，以了解催化剂结构和表面中间体如何随操作潜力和操作时间的变化而变化，以及(D)使用材料部提供的一套表面表征工具进行循环后表征，以检测表面性质的变化。

The direct use of low-grade water to produce green hydrogen eliminates the use of water purification technologies required forcurrent electrolysers, and thus widens the global reach of green hydrogen technologies. However, the long-standing challengeof using low-grade water is the deleterious effect of ions and contaminants in it on the stability, activity and selectivity ofcatalysts. The poor performance of catalysts in these environments has a direct impact on the device efficiency and lifetime. Inorder to design more flexible and resilient water electrolysis systems, we need to develop a fundamental understanding of howcatalyst materials perform in harsh operating environments and use this information to rationally design new catalysts.Through this project, we will elucidate the key factors controlling stability and activity of catalysts for low-grade waterelectrolysis. The project will involve (a) catalyst synthesis and characterization (b) benchmarking of electrochemicalperformance (c) operando optical and X-ray spectroscopy to understand how the catalyst structure and surface intermediatesevolve with potential and time of operation and (d) post-cycling characterization using a suite of surface characterization toolsavailable at the Department of Materials to detect changes in the surface properties.