Ma Yuanyuan, Guo Zhaowei, Dong Xiaoli, Wang Yonggang, Xia Yongyao
Department Department of Chemistry and Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Institute of New Energy, iChEM (Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials), Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2019 Mar 26;58(14):4622-4626. doi: 10.1002/anie.201814625. Epub 2019 Feb 27.
Hydrogen production from water via electrolysis in acid is attracting extensive attention as an attractive alternative approach to replacing fossil fuels. However, the simultaneous evolution of H and O requires a fluorine-containing proton exchange membrane to prevent the gases from mixing while using the same space to concentrate the gases, which significantly increases the cost and reduces the flexibility of this approach. Here, a battery electrode based on the highly reversible enolization reaction of pyrene-4,5,9,10-tetraone is first introduced as a solid-state proton buffer to separate the O and H evolution of acidic water electrolysis in space and time, through which the gas mixing issue can be avoided without using any membrane. This process allows us to separately consider H and O production according to the variation in input power (e.g., the renewable energy) and/or the location for H concentration, thus showing high flexibility for H production.
通过在酸性环境中进行电解从水中制氢作为一种替代化石燃料的有吸引力的方法正受到广泛关注。然而，氢气和氧气的同时析出需要使用含氟质子交换膜来防止气体混合，同时利用相同空间来浓缩气体，这显著增加了成本并降低了该方法的灵活性。在此，首次引入了一种基于芘 - 4,5,9,10 - 四酮高度可逆烯醇化反应的电池电极作为固态质子缓冲剂，以在空间和时间上分离酸性水电解中的析氧和析氢过程，通过这种方式无需使用任何膜即可避免气体混合问题。该过程使我们能够根据输入功率（例如可再生能源）的变化和/或氢气浓缩的位置分别考虑氢气和氧气的产生，从而在氢气生产方面显示出高度的灵活性。
