06 Fakultät Luft- und Raumfahrttechnik und Geodäsie

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://elib.uni-stuttgart.de/handle/11682/7

Browse

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Hydroxyl-conductive 2D hexagonal boron nitrides for anion exchange membrane water electrolysis and sustainable hydrogen production
    (2025) Kaur, Jasneet; Schweinbenz, Matthew; Ho, Kane; Malekkhouyan, Adel; Ghotia, Kamal; Egert, Franz; Razmjooei, Fatemeh; Ansar, Syed Asif; Zarrin, Hadis
    In response to the urgent global call to transition from polluting fossil fuels to sustainable energy alternatives, hydrogen emerges as a promising and widely accessible energy source if it can be efficiently produced through water splitting and electrolysis. Anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolyzers (AEMWEs) have potential for large scale H2 production at a low cost. However, the development of alkaline membranes with high hydroxide conductivity, improved stability and better performance is a significant challenge for the commercial application of advanced AEMWEs. In this work, a novel structure for hydroxide-ion conductive membranes based on surface-engineered two-dimensional (2D) hexagonal boron nitrides (h-BN) is designed and validated in a highly active and durable AEMWE cell with non-precious metal Ni-based electrodes. Among two samples, the high-loaded 2D hBN nanocomposite membrane (M2) showed significantly high hydroxide-ion conductivity (190 mS cm-1) with improved electrochemical and mechanical stability. The AEMWE cell assembled with the M2 membrane exhibited superior cell performance, achieving 1.78 V at 0.5 A cm-2 compared to the cell utilizing the lower loading hBN nanocomposite membrane (M1). Additionally, its performance closely approached that of the cell employing a commercial membrane. During a long-term stability test conducted at a constant load of 0.5 A cm-2 for 250 hours, the M2 membrane maintained satisfactory electrolysis voltage without any notable failure. These findings demonstrate that 2D hBN nanocomposite membranes hold great promise for use in advanced AEMWEs.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Proton exchange membrane-like alkaline water electrolysis using flow-engineered three-dimensional electrodes
    (2024) Rocha, Fernando; Georgiadis, Christos; Van Droogenbroek, Kevin; Delmelle, Renaud; Pinon, Xavier; Pyka, Grzegorz; Kerckhofs, Greet; Egert, Franz; Razmjooei, Fatemeh; Ansar, Syed-Asif; Mitsushima, Shigenori; Proost, Joris
    For high rate water electrolysers, minimising Ohmic losses through efficient gas bubble evacuation away from the active electrode is as important as minimising activation losses by improving the electrode’s electrocatalytic properties. In this work, by a combined experimental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach, we identify the topological parameters of flow-engineered 3-D electrodes that direct their performance towards enhanced bubble evacuation. In particular, we show that integrating Ni-based foam electrodes into a laterally-graded bi-layer zero-gap cell configuration allows for alkaline water electrolysis to become Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM)-like, even when keeping a state-of-the-art Zirfon diaphragm. Detailed CFD simulations, explicitly taking into account the entire 3-D electrode and cell topology, show that under a forced uniform upstream electrolyte flow, such a graded structure induces a high lateral velocity component in the direction normal to and away from the diaphragm. This work is therefore an invitation to start considering PEM-like cell designs for alkaline water electrolysis as well, in particular the use of square or rectangular electrodes in flow-through type electrochemical cells.