Self-Supported Electrodes via Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing Using Non-Critical Materials for GrEen Hydrogen Production

Hydrogen is expected to be essential in achieving EU objectives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

However, while water electrolysis (WE) efficiency can be comparable to fossil fuels, hydrogen produced by WE via renewable or low-carbon energy (green hydrogen) only accounts for 4% of the global hydrogen supply, mainly due to the still-high costs and lower performance of current electrolysers, as a result of the sluggish kinetics and the high overpotentials needed for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which remains the bottleneck of this technology.

In this regard, the electrodes' capital costs the core component of the AEMWE electrolyser can be reduced by developing more performing and stable catalyst layers through advanced manufacturing techniques to meet industry volume demand.In this respect, this project aims to obtain high-performance self-supported electrodes through a ground-breaking wet growth roll-to-roll process.

Our value proposition focuses on offering the AEMWE electrolyser manufacturing industry the high-quality of self-supported electrodes that improve electrolyser performance and reliability, together with the ease of industrialisation provided by the well-established roll-to-roll technology, thus avoiding the high temperature and pressure conditions and corrosive environments that are currently necessary for the batch-to-batch synthesis of self-supported electrodes, while reducing costs, allowing AEMWE to reach large-scale applications and accelerate its commercialisation.To achieve this, the project will aim to develop a proof of concept of advanced mass-produced self-supported layered double hydroxide (LDH) electrodes for AEMWE.

The performance and stability of these electrodes will be validated in a relevant environment, which is a critical milestone in translating the highly promising results of the research conducted during the ERC-StG awarded to Dr G. Abelln into a marketable innovation.