Anodic H2O2 Production in Alkaline Water Electrolysis
The Reversible Large-Scale Energy Storage (RELEASE) Consortium creates fundamental scientific breakthroughs, technological solutions and policy measures that are critical for enhancing performance and reducing cost of large-scale energy storage systems, based on electrochemical conversion of electricity into molecules, for both the 2030 and 2050 horizon. RELEASE targets three technologies: hydrogen production, hydrocarbon production from CO2, and flow batteries. RELEASE includes universities, universities of applied science, companies, field labs, and governments, in an unprecedented alliance from lab-scale to full implementation. RELEASE creates market opportunities for the Dutch industry in a high-growth market, and contributes to building a skilled workforce by involving and educating dozens of young researchers. So far, renewable hydrogen has been developed towards comparatively small-scale (niche) applications as the technology is still too expensive to compete with hydrogen from conventional steam reforming of methane. Research Line 3 of the RELEASE Consortium therefore aims to pave the way for water electrolysis to scale up to GW scale in combination with a substantial cost reduction. One of the main challenges is the insufficient stability of currently available anion-selective polymer electrolyte membranes, particularly at elevated temperatures needed for sufficient electrolyte conductivity and electrode reaction kinetics. In addition, Research Line 3 aims to substantially improve the economics of the water electrolysis process through either bringing down costs by minimizing the scare metal content in the electrodes, or by the coproduction of other bulk chemicals. At Process & Energy, we study the anodic co-production of valuable hydrogen peroxide and its feasibility as a technology to offset the cost of green hydrogen via alkaline water electrolysis.
Link to Public Summary: https://www.nworelease.nl/
