Contact Information: Contact Name: Ian Russell E-mail: ian.russell@oxfordnanosystems.com Website: www.oxfordnanosystems.com
Funding required: £1.5 – 2m
Oxford nanoSystems (OnS) develops advanced and highly innovative coating technologies that reduce the cost per kW of alkaline hydrogen electrolysers. The Problem Green hydrogen has a critical role to play as an energy vector enabling global decarbonisation. However, the cost of production is a major obstacle to the widescale use of green hydrogen. Alkaline water electrolysis (AWE) is a mature technology. Advanced membranes, ‘zero gap’ electrode structures and catalytic electrode coatings have raised the performance of AWE such that it has the potential to dominate the future mix of green hydrogen production technologies. However, capex reductions are required to enable production of green hydrogen by AWE at the costs needed to support widespread adoption. Electrode coatings are a key area with potential for cost reduction. On the cathode side, coatings improve the efficiency of the hydrogen evolution reaction (i.e. lowering the electrical energy needed to cause hydrogen production at the cathode). State of the art (SotA) cathodic coatings are alloys incorporating platinum group metal (PGM) catalysts: for example, nickel loaded with platinum. Although these SotA coatings provide excellent catalytic activity performance, at costs of circa €400/m2, they are simply too costly. This cost arises from both the materials and associated application processes. High performance PGM-free catalytic cathodic coatings, that are lower in cost, are required to drive the rapid adoption of AWE.
The Solution OnS’ core technology is nanoFLUX, a highly porous coating that combines very high surface area with a morphology that enhances gas bubble release. Applied using a novel, low-cost, proprietary electro- chemical deposition process, nanoFLUX is a copper- nickel alloy coating with a dendritic surface structure that is typically 5-30 microns in thickness. OnS has developed a cathodic coating based on nanoFLUX combined with a non-PGM catalytic outer layer. This combination provides very high catalytic surface area, a surface structure that promotes hydrogen gas bubble release and ejection, plus other advantageous features. AWE flow cell tests have shown that OnS’ cathodic coating provides similar electro-catalytic performance to SotA PGM-loaded coatings. Based on detailed process cost analysis, OnS is confident that its cathodic coating can be applied for a small fraction of the cost of the PGM-loaded coatings. OnS will deliver a cathodic coating with SotA performance but at a fraction of the cost of existing PGM-loaded coatings. This will significantly reduce the capital cost of AWE hydrogen electrolysers on a cost/kW basis. This, in turn, will help drive the levelised cost of green hydrogen towards the critical target of $1/kg that is required for mass adoption.
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog