Methanol Electrolysis for Hydrogen Production Using Polymer Electrolyte Membrane: A Mini-Review

Sethu Sundar Pethaiah, Kishor Kumar Sadasivuni, Arunkumar Jayakumar, Deepalekshmi Ponnamma, Chandra Sekhar Tiwary and Gangadharan Sasikumar
Additional contact information
Sethu Sundar Pethaiah: Gashubin Engineering Pte Ltd., 8 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536200, Singapore
Kishor Kumar Sadasivuni: Center for Advanced Materials, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha 2713, Qatar
Arunkumar Jayakumar: SRM Institute of Science and Technology, SRM Nagar, Kattankulathur 603203, India
Deepalekshmi Ponnamma: Center for Advanced Materials, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha 2713, Qatar
Chandra Sekhar Tiwary: Materials Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, Gujarat 38235, India
Gangadharan Sasikumar: Sustainable Solutionz, Chennai 600017, India

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 22, 1-17

Abstract: Hydrogen (H 2 ) has attained significant benefits as an energy carrier due to its gross calorific value (GCV) and inherently clean operation. Thus, hydrogen as a fuel can lead to global sustainability. Conventional H 2 production is predominantly through fossil fuels, and electrolysis is now identified to be most promising for H 2 generation. This review describes the recent state of the art and challenges on ultra-pure H 2 production through methanol electrolysis that incorporate polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM). It also discusses about the methanol electrochemical reforming catalysts as well as the impact of this process via PEM. The efficiency of H 2 production depends on the different components of the PEM fuel cells, which are bipolar plates, current collector, and membrane electrode assembly. The efficiency also changes with the nature and type of the fuel, fuel/oxygen ratio, pressure, temperature, humidity, cell potential, and interfacial electronic level interaction between the redox levels of electrolyte and band gap edges of the semiconductor membranes. Diverse operating conditions such as concentration of methanol, cell temperature, catalyst loading, membrane thickness, and cell voltage that affect the performance are critically addressed. Comparison of various methanol electrolyzer systems are performed to validate the significance of methanol economy to match the future sustainable energy demands.

Keywords: hydrogen production; fuel cell; cell voltage; methanol; future energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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