Performance Investigation of Membrane Electrode Assemblies for Hydrogen Production by Solid Polymer Electrolyte Water Electrolysis

The development of solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) water electrolysis requires satisfactory membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs). In this work, different types of SPE membranes and catalysts were investigated to prepare high performance MEAs via a catalyst sprayed membrane under irradiation (CSMUI) method. The water electrolysis performance and properties of the prepared MEAs were evaluated and analyzed by polarization curve, electrochemistry impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results showed that SPE type must be chosen carefully according to the specific water electrolysis system, and Pt/C catalyst with low Pt content is less suitable as cathode catalyst in water electrolysis. At a cell temperature of 80 °C and atmosphere pressure, the best performance was obtained by using 60 wt.% Pt/C and Nafion 212 membrane: the cell voltage can be as low as 1.526 V at 1 A cm-2 and the terminal voltage is only 1.63 V at 2 A cm-2, and the performance had no obvious degradation after a primary 24 h stability test. SEM characterization revealed that the intimate contact between the catalyst layers (CLs) and the membranes, and the uniformly porous CL structure correlate positively with the MEAs prepared by CSMUI method, exhibiting high performances and good stabilities for SPE water electrolysis.