TY - JOUR
T1 - Decoupled hydrogen and oxygen evolution by a two-step electrochemical–chemical cycle for efficient overall water splitting
AU - Dotan, Hen
AU - Landman, Avigail
AU - Sheehan, Stafford W.
AU - Malviya, Kirtiman Deo
AU - Shter, Gennady E.
AU - Grave, Daniel A.
AU - Arzi, Ziv
AU - Yehudai, Nachshon
AU - Halabi, Manar
AU - Gal, Netta
AU - Hadari, Noam
AU - Cohen, Coral
AU - Rothschild, Avner
AU - Grader, Gideon S.
N1 - Funding Information: The research leading to these results has received funding from the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Resources, as well as the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement number 727606). The results were obtained using central facilities at Technion’s Hydrogen Technologies Research Laboratory, created and supported by the Nancy and Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program and the Adelis Foundation, and at the N2–H2 alternative fuel laboratory donated by Ed Satell. G.S.G. also acknowledges the support of the Arturo Gruenbaum Chair in Material Engineering. The authors thank Y. Ein-Eli for reading the manuscript and providing useful suggestions for improving it, and N. Haimovich for some of the heat balance calculations. Publisher Copyright: © 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2019/9/1
Y1 - 2019/9/1
N2 - Electrolytic hydrogen production faces technological challenges to improve its efficiency, economic value and potential for global integration. In conventional water electrolysis, the water oxidation and reduction reactions are coupled in both time and space, as they occur simultaneously at an anode and a cathode in the same cell. This introduces challenges, such as product separation, and sets strict constraints on material selection and process conditions. Here, we decouple these reactions by dividing the process into two steps: an electrochemical step that reduces water at the cathode and oxidizes the anode, followed by a spontaneous chemical step that is driven faster at higher temperature, which reduces the anode back to its initial state by oxidizing water. This enables overall water splitting at average cell voltages of 1.44–1.60 V with nominal current densities of 10–200 mA cm−2 in a membrane-free, two-electrode cell. This allows us to produce hydrogen at low voltages in a simple, cyclic process with high efficiency, robustness, safety and scale-up potential.
AB - Electrolytic hydrogen production faces technological challenges to improve its efficiency, economic value and potential for global integration. In conventional water electrolysis, the water oxidation and reduction reactions are coupled in both time and space, as they occur simultaneously at an anode and a cathode in the same cell. This introduces challenges, such as product separation, and sets strict constraints on material selection and process conditions. Here, we decouple these reactions by dividing the process into two steps: an electrochemical step that reduces water at the cathode and oxidizes the anode, followed by a spontaneous chemical step that is driven faster at higher temperature, which reduces the anode back to its initial state by oxidizing water. This enables overall water splitting at average cell voltages of 1.44–1.60 V with nominal current densities of 10–200 mA cm−2 in a membrane-free, two-electrode cell. This allows us to produce hydrogen at low voltages in a simple, cyclic process with high efficiency, robustness, safety and scale-up potential.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85073032025
U2 - 10.1038/s41560-019-0462-7
DO - 10.1038/s41560-019-0462-7
M3 - Article
SN - 2058-7546
VL - 4
SP - 786
EP - 795
JO - Nature Energy
JF - Nature Energy
IS - 9
ER -