Advanced manufacturing alkaline electrolyser cell-stacks for green hydrogen

Summary

Need

This project was selected as part of the competitive Hydrogen R&D Funding Round under the Transformative Research Accelerating Commercialisation (TRAC) Program to rapidly develop the critical technologies required to build a clean, innovative, safe, and competitive hydrogen industry and position Australia as a major player globally. While hydrogen technologies and targets have continued to evolve, R&D investment remains a critical imperative to commercialise clean hydrogen. Projects supported by the Hydrogen R&D Funding Round seek to progress the commercialisation of low cost, clean hydrogen in Australia.

Alkaline electrolysis is a promising approach for large-scale hydrogen production as it relies on relatively low-cost and abundant electrocatalysts and has a higher operational stability than alternative routes, such as proton exchange membrane water electrolysis. The project builds on the University of Sydney’s recent achievements in developing a scalable advanced manufacturing approach for earth abundant anodes and cathodes for alkaline electrolysis, and a membrane-less alkaline electrolyser cell design of industry partner Hysata, that significantly decreases resistive and performance losses, by inhibiting bubble formations at the electrodes, while also minimising transport cost.

Action

The project aims to decrease the cost and improve the scalability and efficiency of alkaline electrolysis by developing roll-to-roll manufacturing technology for the anode-cathode assembly (ACA) using earth abundant materials.

The project will be delivered in two stages, a Core Research Stage (Stage 1), followed by a Research Commercialisation Stage (Stage 2).

The Core Research Stage will involve scaling-up manufacturing technology, optimising its use and the ACA material composition and morphology for the membrane-less alkaline electrolyser design, benchmarking the resulting electrolyser performance and producing a techno-economic model for the cost of the alkaline electrolyser and resulting hydrogen cost.

The Research Commercialisation Stage will build upon the progress in the Core Research Stage and lead to the industrialisation, benchmarking and commercialisation of the electrolyser manufacturing technology.

Outcome

The project will achieve the following outcomes:

• accelerated commercialisation of renewable hydrogen through innovative research and development in alkaline electrolysis technologies;
• increased academic research capacity in the Australian hydrogen sector, and the facilitation of collaboration between research groups and industry;
• improvement in the technology readiness and commercial readiness of the resulting alkaline electrolyser fabrication technology;
• improved capability to fabricate alkaline electrolyser cells at scale through developing a roll-to-roll manufacturing technology for earth abundant, low-cost, efficient and durable electrocatalysts with integrated separator; and
• a pathway to scaling-up and commercialising the resulting alkaline electrolyser fabrication technology to reduce the costs of green hydrogen production.