Wakayama Hiroaki, Yamazaki Kiyoshi
Toyota Central R&D Laboratories, Inc., 41-1 Yokomichi, Nagakute, Aichi 480-1192, Japan.
ACS Omega. 2021 Feb 1;6(6):4161-4166. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c04786. eCollection 2021 Feb 16.
Although hydrogen is expected to play an important role in the storage of energy from renewable energy sources, technology to produce hydrogen at low cost is needed for its widespread use. The key to the low-cost production of hydrogen with a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) water electrolysis system, which is widely used today, is to replace the Au- or Pt-coated Ti with a low-cost material that can be manufactured from inexpensive, corrosion-resistant, and conductive components. We studied titanium suboxide (TiO)-coated titanium (Ti) bipolar plates, which can be substituted for commonly used Pt-coated Ti bipolar plates, as an inexpensive way of producing the PEM water electrolysis system. The water electrolysis characteristics of the cell were evaluated using TiO-sputtered Ti for the bipolar plates of the water electrolysis cell, and the applicability of TiO-sputtered Ti was investigated. The TiO-sputtered Ti had a very low contact resistance (4-5 mΩ cm) before and after voltage application that was equivalent to that of gold or platinum plating. The efficiency of water electrolysis in this study was comparable to those of previous reports using bipolar plates coated with precious metals. This development opens the door for fabrication of low-cost electrolyzers as well as related electrochemical devices such as fuel cells, sensors, catalysts, and air or liquid cleaning devices.
尽管氢有望在可再生能源的能量存储中发挥重要作用，但要使其广泛应用，仍需要低成本制氢技术。当今广泛使用的聚合物电解质膜（PEM）水电解系统实现低成本制氢的关键在于，用一种可由廉价、耐腐蚀且导电的成分制造的低成本材料替代镀有金或铂的钛。我们研究了用二氧化钛（TiO）涂层钛（Ti）双极板替代常用的镀铂钛双极板，作为一种制造PEM水电解系统的低成本方法。使用溅射TiO的Ti作为水电解槽双极板来评估电池的水电解特性，并研究溅射TiO的Ti的适用性。溅射TiO的Ti在施加电压前后具有非常低的接触电阻（4 - 5 mΩ·cm），这与镀金或镀铂相当。本研究中的水电解效率与先前使用涂覆贵金属双极板的报告相当。这一进展为制造低成本电解槽以及相关的电化学装置（如燃料电池、传感器、催化剂以及空气或液体清洁装置）打开了大门。
