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