Workshop on Transition Beyond Fossil Fuels: Lowering the Cost of Green Hydrogen

Presenter: Benjamin Wiley, Professor of Chemistry, Duke University

Decarbonization of the industrial sector (30% of U.S. emissions) will greatly benefit from the availability of low-cost green hydrogen, which is produced by the electrolysis of water with clean energy. The problem with green hydrogen is its high cost, about $4.2 per kg, vs. $2 per kg for “gray” hydrogen (from steam methane reforming). The biggest contributors to the cost of green hydrogen are the cost of electricity and the cost of the electrolyzer. As the cost of electricity from renewable sources is rapidly decreasing, research in the Wiley lab has focused on how to decrease the cost of the electrolyzer by increasing its productivity (kg/hr of H2). Most recently, the Wiley lab reported how to achieve a 50-fold increase in the maximum rate of hydrogen production over conventional alkaline electrolyzers through the use of a microfibrous flow-through electrode. This electrolyzer used a 4x4 mm electrode and was run for up to 100 hours at its maximum rate. This talk will discuss work to construct a new prototype electrolyzer that enables a decrease in the cost of green hydrogen to that of gray hydrogen through use of larger electrodes with an optimized geometry and composition, as well as a higher operating temperature and pressure.