First implementation of alkaline polymer electrolyte water electrolysis working only with pure water

• DOI: 10.1039/c2ee22146b
• Publication Date: 2012-05-11T13:30:49Z
• Authors: Li Xiao; Shuai Zhang; Jing Pan; Cuixia Yang; Minglong He; Lin Zhuang; Juntao Lu
• Keywords: Polysulfone; Alkaline water electrolysis; Electrolysis of water; Ionomer

A new type of water electrolysis is implemented using an alkaline polymer electrolyte (APE) and non-precious metal catalysts, working only with pure water. The membrane–electrode assembly (MEA) fabricated by sandwiching a self-crosslinking quaternary ammonia polysulfone (xQAPS) membrane between Ni–Fe anode Ni–Mo cathode, both impregnated xQAPS ionomer. Such initial prototype APE has exhibited decent performance comparable to that the well-developed electrolyzer.