In an open access paper published in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of Wollongong in Australia report that their capillary-fed electrolysis cell demonstrates water electrolysis performance exceeding commercial electrolysis cells, with a cell voltage at 0.5 A cm−2 and 85 °C of only 1.51 V, equating to 98% energy efficiency, with an energy consumption of 40.4 kWh/kg hydrogen (vs. ~47.5 kWh/kg in commercial electrolysis cells).
With this level of cell energy efficiency—well above International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) 2050 target and significantly better than existing electrolyzer technologies—hydrogen production cost could be well below US$1.50/kg.
This approach to water electrolysis supplies water to the hydrogen- and oxygen-evolving electordes via capillary-induced transport alone a porous inner-electrode separator. This leads to…