(405e) Membraneless Electrolyzers for Water Electrolysis
AIChE Annual Meeting
2016
2016 AIChE Annual Meeting
Engineering Sciences and Fundamentals
Electrochemical Systems for Energy Conversion and Storage
Tuesday, November 15, 2016 - 4:30pm to 4:50pm
Conventional polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzers rely on membranes to conduct H+ ions between electrodes while separating the H2 and O2 product species, but these membranes can be costly, prone to failure, limit the choice of solution pH, and require a fairly complex MEA-based architecture.[3,4] Recently, we have demonstrated 3D printed membraneless electrolyzers based on flowing electrolyte through two angled mesh flow-through electrodes, which results in efficient separation of the H2 and O2 product gases with minimal product crossover.[3] Ongoing research builds off of this initial study by using in situ high speed video analysis to quantitatively measure current density distributions along angled mesh electrodes under various operating conditions. Experimental observations are compared with modeled current density distributions, providing a useful framework for further optimizing device performance and better understanding the hydrodynamics associated with gas-evolving flow-through electrodes.
References
[1.] B. Kroposki, et al., National Renewable Energy Laboratory - Technical report (2006).
[2.] Millet, P., et al., International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 35, (2010): 5043â??5052.
[3.] G.D. Oâ??Neil, C. Christian, D. Brown, J.T. Davis, D.E. Brown, D.V. Esposito, J. Electrochemical Society, 163, (2016): (In Press).