Volume 50

Design of highly wettable microstructure for enhancing the oxygen-water transport dynamics in anode catalyst layers of PEMWE Yuyang Wang, Jian Huang, Boshi Xu, Dingding Ye, Liang Zhang, Xianqing Zhu, Jun Li, Xun Zhu, Qiang Liao

Abstract

Proton exchange membrane water electrolysis
(PEMWE) has a certain fluctuating load following ability
and is an effective way to realize renewable energy
consumption. The performance and stability of PEMWE
are seriously affected by the gas-liquid countercurrent
that occurs at the interface of the anode catalytic layer
(ACL) and the porous transport layer (PTL). In this work,
polyethylene glycol (PEG) was used as an ACL ink additive
to improve slurry stability and to control the wettability
of the catalyst layer by varying the mass ratio of PEG to
Nafion. Single flow channel modelling was used to obtain
the water saturation of the ACL. The results show that
the addition of PEG to the slurry can make the slurry
more stable and improve the hydrophilicity of the ACL.
When the mass ratio of PEG to Nafion is 5:5, the water
contact angle of the catalytic layer is 72.3°, and the
performance of the electrolyzer can reach 3.07 A·cm-
2@1.9 V, which is 0.07 A·cm-2 higher than that of DOE
2025 target. This paper is innovative and instructive for
the design of CL/PTL interface in electrolyzer

Keywords proton exchange membrane water electrolysis, ink stability, anode catalyst layer structure, wettability