Abstract
Energy losses and purity of product gases in alkaline water electrolysis strongly depend on properties of a separator positioned between the electrodes. This paper reports on heterogeneous separators based on microporous polysulfone membranes modified by graft co-polymerization of acrylic acid. After neutralization with KOH, the pores of the modified membranes were filled with potassium polyacrylate, a superabsorbent material forming hydrogel upon intake of an aqueous electrolyte. Under electrolysis conditions of 50 °C and atmospheric pressure, increasing amount of hydrogel in pores suppresses hydrogen permeability without apparent reduction of ionic conductivity. We have identified the product of ionic resistance and hydrogen flux as a suitable parameter to compare performance of separators of various thickness. In terms of this parameter, present separators surpass the performance of Zirfon™ Perl UTP 500 tested under the identical conditions. Ex-situ aging test in 30 wt% KOH at 60 °C has revealed preservation of high wettability for up to 1340 h.
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