(Invited) HydroGEN Benchmarking: Developing Best Practices for Water Splitting Technologies

Abstract

The need for renewable sources of hydrogen is increasing rapidly based on global goals for decarbonization. Interest and investment has also increased with the advent of the Hydrogen Council and the DOE H2@Scale initiative. There are several pathways which could eventually be part of the overall mix, but are currently at different maturities and have different challenges. Low cost renewable energy provides a potential pathway for low temperature electrolysis to make a large impact in the short term, while high temperature baseload such as nuclear matches well with high temperature electrolysis based on solid oxide technology. Photoelectrochemcal and solar thermal chemical water splitting are earlier stage technologies, but could be viable in the long term especially in areas without current infrastructure, if the materials targets can be achieved and manufacturing capability is developed. In the nearer term, understanding of these challenges can also provide valuable perspective for the more mature pathways. In any of these technologies, appropriate comparisons of test results is important to measure overall progress in the field and identify promising directions, as well as to provide credibility to published results. The DOE Fuel Cell Technologies Office previously funded the development of a detailed reference guide of common methodologies, protocols, and important limitations for measuring critical performance properties of advanced hydrogen storage materials, which has served as a resource to the hydrogen storage materials development community to aid in clearly communicating the relevant performance properties of new materials as they are discovered and tested. The project was coordinated with the IEA and involved 46 co-authors and contributors from 9 countries. The final documents are available to the public on-line: https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/downloads/recommended-best-practices-characterization-storage-properties-hydrogen-0 A similar effort is now underway for water splitting technologies, framed by questionnaires distributed to the community, frameworks for materials and device testing, and workshops and discussions for feedback. A series of protocols is being drafted to provide easy to follow procedures for materials characterization. The team is also identifying gaps in methods and materials for possible development, and drafting technology roadmaps to highlight research needs. This talk will describe the success of the storage effort, and status for the water splitting benchmarking project.