Industrially Relevant Conditions in Lab-Scale Analysis for Alkaline Water Electrolysis

Abstract

Alkaline water electrolysis remains one of the most promising technologies for the large-scale production of green hydrogen. However, further increases in efficiency remain elusive, as new electrode materials that are highly efficient in the laboratory cannot maintain their performance under industrial conditions. Within this work, we present a beaker cell setup, in which the industrial relevance of research materials can already be investigated in the laboratory by applying industrial conditions. Thus, the setup allows for testing at 80 °C in 30 wt. % KOH for more than 300 hours. Electrodes are contacted with an in-house designed Ni tuck-in holder and two types of reference electrodes are recommended. In addition, a protocol to unify catalyst research is introduced.