DOE Advanced Alkaline Water
Electrolysis Meeting:
Cell-Level Challenges
Steven Kloos, CEO
26 Jan 2022
AquaHydrex Overview
▪ Founded in late 2012 by True North Venture Partners
− Invests in and builds businesses that help the world transition to a clean and sustainable future
− PE-like playbook for early-stage ventures, focused solely on disruptive innovations
− Makes long term commitments to their businesses through a perpetual holding company, which is
capitalized in excess of $700 million
▪ Based in Louisville, Colorado (near Boulder)
− Originally founded in Wollongong, Australia
▪ Singular company focus has been to develop an idealized electrolysis platform for Green Hydrogen at scale
− Not pushing a technology but trying to solve for the ideal
− “Right to left” thinking
− Clean-sheet redesign of alkaline water electrolysis to design-out the problems and achieve the
requirements
▪ Strong team, equipment and lab capabilities, engineering design, prototyping, and testing
▪ Company is in the early stages of commercialization
2
Core Requirements of an Idealized Electrolysis Technology
1) Safe
2) Efficient conversion of $/unit electricity to $/unit hydrogen (ie, making the lowest cost of hydrogen possible)
▪ High electrochemical performance over a broad range
▪ Low system capex
▪ Low operating & maintenance cost
3) Directly tie to variable renewable energy
4) Fast & easy to deploy in projects with minimal plant-level BOP, EPC time & expense
5) Achieves necessary quality hydrogen regardless of situation: high purity & ability to make at high pressure
6) For grid-connected cases, grid-friendly and grid-supporting
3
Alkaline Water Electrolysis Position
▪ Alkaline water electrolysis (AWE)’s heritage dates to invention of the diaphragm cell by Charles Watt in
1851 and commercialization of the chlor-alkali electrolysis process in about 1888
▪ With demand for hydrogen to feed Haber Bosch, in 1928 Norsk Hydro (now NEL) commercialized water
electrolysis, based on the chloralkali platform, to produce hydrogen from hydroelectric
▪ AWE scaled nicely – to levels well beyond the total running electrolyzer plants today (< 300 MW)
− Over 100 MW in the 1930s
− Peaked at ~600 MW by about 1960
▪ Excellent fundamental and exploratory work in the early-mid 1900’s
▪ Today’s AWE leaders look a lot like those from 100 yrs ago
− The chlor-alkali players are leading the charge in AWE, with chlor-alkali like AWE offerings
− NEL’s technology still is pretty similar to their original offering
▪ Some interesting work by a few players to create pressurized technology
▪ But not a lot has changed in in AWE in the past ~75 yrs
4
Alkaline Water Electrolysis Characteristics
▪ Poor J-V curves; current densities around 2-6 kA/m2 (200-600 mA/cm2), recently as high as 9 kA/m2
− PEM is at 15-25 kA/m2, at similar voltages (and moving to higher current densities @ higher voltages)
▪ Terrible cell-level pressure management that results in unsafe crossover upon rapid changes in current
density
− Means that AWE can’t be directly tied to variable renewable energy without mitigation
▪ Large & complex balance of plant, including flowing electrolyte loops filled with high concentration caustic
− Also, external gas-electrolyte separators and mist eliminators
− On-site caustic management
▪ Parasitic shunt currents results in:
− Reverse currents if the system is turned off, damaging catalysts (consequently, AWE systems shouldn’t
be powered-off and tend not to use advanced catalysts)
− Corrosion (eg, in steel electrolyte piping or electrolyte-gas separation tanks)
5
Current Position of AWE
▪ Because of the mature nature of AWE and its poor characteristics, the US Department of Energy has largely
ignored AWE as a viable future electrolysis platform and instead has bet on sexier PEM & SOEC (and now
also AEM)
− Essentially no AWE work funded by DOE or reported on at the Annual Merit Reviews
▪ Little research on AWE in the past ~50+ yrs
− Little work on advanced AWE catalysts (thankfully, AEM now driving some activity)
− Little recent work to address stack & system issues
▪ But, because of the ability for the chlor-alkali value chain to pivot to AWE, and because of the proven nature
of AWE and it’s fundamentally low cost position, AWE is actually leading the charge in Green Hydrogen
− And because PEM really isn’t proven yet (at scale) and doesn’t have a built-up supply chain
− And because many don’t see PEM scaling due to its dependency on iridium
6
What has the DOE Been Excited About?
PEM
▪ PEM’s cell environment is highly acidic, resulting in foundational problems:
− Most metals corrode in acid, so need to use expensive machined titanium, making PEM fundamentally
high capex
− In the acidic environment, catalyst choices are severely limited, and iridium is the only high
performance choice
− PEM uses a cation exchange membrane that turns from a conductor to a resistor if (when?) fouled with
hardness
SOEC
▪ Solid Oxide requires high temperature operation (> 750 C), resulting in foundational problems:
− Solid oxide systems require about 35% of the input energy to be heat
− Solid oxide systems don’t like to be turned on & off – they are best used 24x7
− The high temp environment has been tough on performance stability in SOFC, should we expect the
same in SOEC?
7
[At Least Some of] Alkaline’s Problems Are Addressable
▪ The alkaline environment is suitable for a wide range of metals and an accessible amount of elastomers
and polymers
− Can use nickel in the cell
− Many metals and catalyst materials are stable in the alkaline environment
▪ Some, if not all, of alkaline’s problems are addressable
− And, even if they aren’t, alkaline is in the lead position today and is widely viewed by analysts to
command a considerable market share going forward
▪ If AEM is able to be commercialized, it probably will need a conductive electrolyte, at which point it becomes
alkaline water electrolysis, and will have similar problems
▪ DOE needs to jump on board and, ideally, lead
8
Opportunity: High-Electrochemical Performance
▪ Target achieving high current densities, ie 20+ kA/m2, at good voltages
− Has to be in zero-gap cells
− Most AWE electrolyzers do not use an applied catalyst (other than the base Ni metal) and give low
current densities, around 2-4-ish kA/m2
− Some AWE use applied catalysts, possibly with PGMs (for robustness), and run up to ~6-9 kA/m2
▪ Target stable, long-life, advanced electrodes (ie, those with a catalyst)
▪ Achieving voltage excellence
− Understanding all impedances and working to make them as low as their practical entitlement
▪ Related, need to reduce the ‘slope’ of the J-V curve
▪ Pressurized systems
▪ Shunt current management
9
Need: High Electrochemical Performance Cells
▪ Only one known supplier in the world of proven advanced AWE anode & cathode
− No US-based production of advanced AWE electrodes
▪ There is a debate of what AWE technology will win out
− Low cost (classic NEL, Chinese) AWE electrolyzers that don’t use advanced electrodes
− More expensive AWE electrolyzers that use high-cost, higher-performance advanced electrodes
▪ The current reversal issue in AWE has hampered the development and deployment of non-PGM advanced
electrodes
− Can current reversal be avoided or managed?
− Alkaline is a great environment for many possible catalyst choices – this is a white space – huge
opportunity for DOE & academics
▪ Need to understand bussing and substrates and their affect on performance
▪ Need to understand bubbles
− Including at elevated pressure
▪ Need to advance to higher temperatures over time
− From ~60-80 C to 100-140 C
10
− Will need to address the membrane separator
Need: Testing at Industrially Relevant Conditions
▪ The literature contains little to no info on AWE performance & lifetime at target conditions, for example at:
− Higher temps (90 C – 140 C)
− Higher pressures (30 bar, 100 bar)
− Higher current densities (10 kA/m2 to 30+ kA/m2)
▪ Need to understand degradation mechanisms & rates, especially at these advanced operating conditions
− Electrode degradation is a key driver of stack change-out and O&M costs, so important
▪ Need test methods to accelerate degradation and identify failure modes
− Effect of on/off, higher voltage, material loading & surface area, bubbles (ablation), temperature, …
▪ Need to accurately measure impedances through the cell, from bipolar plate to bipolar plate, and compare
to individual components
− The membrane separator tends to show a much higher impedance in operation than when tested
separately as a component – why?
▪ Need to understand upper current density limit due to hydroxide diffusion limits, and effect of temperature
▪ Need to develop and understand separator membrane performance at higher temperatures (100 – 140 C)
− Crossover will increase but electrochemical performance and hydroxide diffusivity increase, too
11
Need: Understand & Improve Crossover
▪ Three types of crossover in AWE
− Crossover due to diffusive transport of dissolved H2 and O2 to the wrong side of the cell
• This type of crossover defines the lower turn-down current density
• Is it true that a ‘better’ membrane in terms of impedance will always result in more crossover?
− Crossover due to cell internals
• Cell compression on the membrane
• Trapped bubbles between an electrode and the membrane
− Crossover due to pressure fluctuations in the cell caused by current density changes
• This is what limits AWE’s ability to directly tie to renewables, which is a huge limitation, but the
literature has little to no data on this problem
• Can this be somehow mitigated?
12
Summary
▪ PEM & solid oxide aren’t a great fit with the requirements of an idealized electrochemical platform
▪ AWE, despite being considered ‘mature’ and low-tech, is playing a key role at the start of the green
hydrogen revolution and is projected to have staying power
▪ The DOE and academics have largely ignored AWE
▪ There are considerable areas of opportunity to improve AWE and the DOE should play a key leading role in
driving the development and fundamental understandings in AWE
▪ Improved AWE is the likely winning choice for long-term production of Green Hydrogen @ Scale
13
