Decoupled hydrogen and oxygen evolution by a two-step electrochemical–chemical cycle for efficient overall water splitting

Hen Dotan, Avigail Landman, Stafford W. Sheehan, Kirtiman Deo Malviya, Gennady E. Shter, Daniel A. Grave, Ziv Arzi, Nachshon Yehudai, Manar Halabi, Netta Gal, Noam Hadari, Coral Cohen, Avner Rothschild () and Gideon S. Grader ()
Additional contact information
Hen Dotan: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Avigail Landman: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Stafford W. Sheehan: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Kirtiman Deo Malviya: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Gennady E. Shter: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Daniel A. Grave: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Ziv Arzi: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Nachshon Yehudai: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Manar Halabi: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Netta Gal: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Noam Hadari: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Coral Cohen: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Avner Rothschild: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Gideon S. Grader: Technion—Israel Institute of Technology

Nature Energy, 2019, vol. 4, issue 9, 786-795

Abstract: Abstract Electrolytic hydrogen production faces technological challenges to improve its efficiency, economic value and potential for global integration. In conventional water electrolysis, the water oxidation and reduction reactions are coupled in both time and space, as they occur simultaneously at an anode and a cathode in the same cell. This introduces challenges, such as product separation, and sets strict constraints on material selection and process conditions. Here, we decouple these reactions by dividing the process into two steps: an electrochemical step that reduces water at the cathode and oxidizes the anode, followed by a spontaneous chemical step that is driven faster at higher temperature, which reduces the anode back to its initial state by oxidizing water. This enables overall water splitting at average cell voltages of 1.44–1.60 V with nominal current densities of 10–200 mA cm−2 in a membrane-free, two-electrode cell. This allows us to produce hydrogen at low voltages in a simple, cyclic process with high efficiency, robustness, safety and scale-up potential.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-019-0462-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natene:v:4:y:2019:i:9:d:10.1038_s41560-019-0462-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nenergy/

DOI: 10.1038/s41560-019-0462-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Energy is currently edited by Fouad Khan

More articles in Nature Energy from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().