Catalyst for Proton Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis with Low Iridium Loading developed
The new catalyst doubles the iridium utilization and thus reduces the amount of iridium required in a PEMWE cell. This can reduce the costs of the promising PEMWE technology for producing hydrogen and accelerate its large-scale implementation.
Study on backing electrode degradation during OER published in ACS Catalysis
In their current study “Standardizing OER Electrocatalyst Benchmarking in Aqueous Electrolytes: Comprehensive Guidelines for Accelerated Stress Tests and Backing Electrodes”, the scientists explore the complex interplay of backing electrode degradation mechanisms and accelerated stress test conditions during the oxygen evolution reaction.
In an international collaboration, researchers at HI ERN have published a Gas Diffusion Electrodes (GDE) inter-lab comparison in the renowned journal ACS Energy Letters. In this work, the researchers show that comparable oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst benchmarking is possible with different GDE half-cells and in various laboratories.
Building a bridge between degradation studies in aqueous model systems and real-world systems as degradation is pronounced very differently in the two worlds. In their recent review titled “Limitations of aqueous model systems in the stability assessment of electrocatalysts for oxygen reactions in fuel cell and electrolyzers”, HI ERN-scientists give a short overview on the differences between the two systems and how they affect electrocatalyst degradation.
Building a bridge between degradation studies in aqueous model systems and real-world systems as degradation is pronounced very differently in the two worlds. In their recent review titled “Limitations of aqueous model systems in the stability assessment of electrocatalysts for oxygen reactions in fuel cell and electrolyzers”, HI ERN-scientists give a short overview on the differences between the two systems and how they affect electrocatalyst degradation.
In his study, PhD student Ken Jenewein has developed a photoelectrochemical scanning flow cell connected to an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer and equipped with a solar simulator, Air Mass 1.5 G filter, and monochromator. The established system can assess basic photoelectrochemical metrics in a reliable and high-throughput manner as well as the in-situ photocorrosion under realistic light conditions.
In their current work the HI ERN-scientists present the first experimental approach to measure Platinum (Pt) dissolution in gas diffusion electrodes (GDE). Therefore they coupled their GDE half-cell setup with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS). With this, Pt dissolution in realistic catalyst layers and the transport of dissolved Pt species through Nafion membranes are evaluated directly.