Porous Ni electrodes for hydrogen production from water electrolysis

Abstract

Hydrogen has been seen as one of the most valuable options regarding renewable energy storage and conversion. However, its production is still mostly based on fossil fuels, in part because of the high cost of alternative production routes, as is the case of water electrolysis for example. This fact is explained by the energy consumed during the process of hydrogen evolution from water. Nevertheless, the research on water electrolysis is justifiable by the advantages that the process offers, as high produced hydrogen purity, possible association with other renewable energy sources such as solar, hydro and wind power generation, no CO2 emissions during the evolution, simplicity of the process, as so many others. With the purpose of increasing the hydrogen-producing device (electrolysers) performance, great scientific efforts have been directed to the electrodes base materials and their surface technology. In this way, the present work propose powder metallurgy based processes as production routes of nickel porous electrodes, i.e., relatively low cost and high active superficial area electrodes for hydrogen production.