Decoupled Electrolysis: A Novel Method for Water Splitting Using WO3 Auxiliary Electrode
Abstracts of 244th ECS Meeting 2023
Mairis Iesalnieks, Mārtiņš Vanags, Andris Šutka

More emphasis must be placed on the use of clean and renewable energy sources. Production of electricity using solar, wind, geothermal etc is becoming more widespread. However, these types of energy production suffer from intermittence in production and a mismatch of production and consumption cycles. These problems result in a need for an energy storage medium. Hydrogen is a viable option because of its high gravimetric heat capacity (143 MJ/kg) and low flashpoint (-231°C) [1]. For now, most of theproduced hydrogen is from hydrocarbons, and only 4% is being produced using electrolysis. Hydrogen production via electrolysis is an efficient way how to store surplus energy from renewable energy sources but electrolysis must be made more achievable. Commonly used water electrolysis is limited by the need for complicated gas distribution systems to avoid mixing of H2 and O2 which can lead to a serious safety hazard. Membranes and diaphragms can solve gas mixing problems but they significantly reduce efficiency and increase hydrogen production costs. Here we demonstrate the principle of decoupled electrolysis where oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is separated in space with the use of a WO3 redox mediator. WO3 was produced by the solvothermal method.


Keywords
WO3, Decoupled electrolysis, H2 generation
Hyperlink
https://ecs.confex.com/ecs/244/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/175741

Iesalnieks, M., Vanags, M., Šutka, A. Decoupled Electrolysis: A Novel Method for Water Splitting Using WO3 Auxiliary Electrode. In: Abstracts of 244th ECS Meeting, Sweden, Gothenburg, 8-12 October, 2023. Online: ECS, 2023, pp.1-2.

Publication language
English (en)
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