Publicly available durability data on alkaline electrolysers is scarce; therefore, these efforts will contribute to enriching the scientific community’s understanding of current density and stability of electrolysers.
More specifically, the goal is to drastically decrease the degradation rate and increase the efficiency of alkaline cells and stacks via the development of hierarchically structured flow-engineered monolithic porous transport electrodes, via design/material improvements on stack level, and via accelerated testing procedures.
Within the 3-year ENDURE project, a PGM-free alkaline electrolyser stack with PEM-like performance and low degradation rate will be developed. Proposed innovations include:
- Development of 3D structured, laterally graded, flow-engineered, monolithic porous transport electrodes (PTE), drastically improving electrode kinetics and mass transport compared to state-of-the-art cells;
- Multi-level computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling coupled with advanced X-ray tomography;
- Novel PGM-free high performance electrocatalysts fabricated using inherently scalable methods;
- Stack-level improvements and performance validation using 100 cm2 and 1000 cm2 stack platforms, and benchmarking with state-of-the-art;
- Building upon the work done by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the development of harmonised test protocols and accelerated testing procedures for alkaline water electrolysers.
The project consortium consists of Stargate Hydrogen (project coordinator), Fraunhofer IFAM, the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research (ZSW), the Aragon Hydrogen Foundation, Permascand AB, and Université Catholique de Louvain.
In the project, the consortium will adopt an approach that combines computer simulations, rapid prototyping, and thorough experimental validation at the single cell, Single Repeat Unit (SRU), and short stack levels.
Rainer Küngas, the project’s technical coordinator and CTO of Stargate Hydrogen, commented: “Alkaline electrolyser technology has been in industrial use for decades, and, therefore, the common misconception is that alkaline systems have reached a performance plateau. The ENDURE project is all about demonstrating that alkaline electrolysers still have a lot of potential left, both in terms of performance as well as durability. Stargate is very proud to be part of the project consortium that brings together leading research and commercial partners in Europe.”
