An ink-free integrated dual electrode assembly for economical proton electrolyzer membrane water electrolysis at ultrahigh current densities

Abstract

The clean and sustainable “green hydrogen” is highly attractive as an alternative energy. However, the excessive cost of “green hydrogen” hinders its large-scale application, which is limited by the costly membrane electrode assembly (MEA) in proton exchange membrane electrolyzer cells (PEMECs). Herein, we revolutionize the conventional MEA via a facile ink-free and cost-effective integrated dual electrode assembly (IDEA) for reducing the costs and enhancing the performance of PEMECs. IDEA not only greatly simplifies fabrication processes of MEAs from over ten steps to three steps but also significantly increases hydrogen production rate simultaneously (45.26 % more hydrogen at 1.8 V). Benefiting from the nano-thick catalyst layers, the IDEA can achieve an industrial “overload” current density of 6 A/cm2 at a low cell voltage of 1.82 V with an 83.9 % noble catalyst saving, which outperforms most reported PEMECs. Particularly, the degradation rate of IDEA is only 24 μV/h at 1.8 A/cm2.