Development of a Self-Pressurized Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Electrolyzer for Hydrogen Production at High Pressures

Abstract

This study involves the development of a self-pressurized water electrolyzer for H₂ production, highlighting the effects of electrolyzer configuration, operation temperature, flow rate, and pressure on the electrolyzer's performance. The compression of H₂ takes up a large proportion of the cost for H₂ production through water electrolysis in a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzer. However, creating a high-pressure PEM electrolyzer comes with challenges, such as managing diffusion and ohmic losses that impact cell voltage and efficiency. To address these issues, a novel cell configuration was designed. This configuration aims to minimize the gap among various components, including electrodes, gas diffusion layers, and current collectors. The configuration also leads to reduced cost as well as the difficulty of processing and assembling. Additionally, the gas diffusion layers and current collectors were coated with Pt to enhance their conductivity, effectively reducing the ohmic losses within the cell. Further optimization efforts focused on investigating the effects of temperature, pressure, and water flow on concentration voltage to achieve peak performance. As a result, a cell voltage of 1.868 V was achieved at 1 A/cm² under 10 MPa operating conditions.