Revolutionizing Green Hydrogen Production: Advances in Non-Precious Metal Electrode Materials for Water Electrolysis

Green hydrogen, as an important carrier of clean and renewable energy, its large-scale production relies on the cost reduction of water electrolysis hydrogen production technology, and the catalytic performance of electrode materials is a key factor affecting the cost of hydrogen production. Traditional water electrolysis electrodes rely on precious metal catalysts (such as platinum, iridium), resulting in high costs. The new generation of non-precious metal electrode materials has achieved a balance between performance and cost through technological innovation.

The core technology in the production and manufacturing process lies in "non-precious metal catalyst design + electrode structure engineering". Non-precious metal catalysts such as nickel-based, cobalt-based, and iron-based are developed. Their catalytic activity is improved through alloying, nanosization, defect engineering and other means. For example, nickel-cobalt bimetallic alloy nanosheets are prepared, and the hydrogen evolution or oxygen evolution overpotential is reduced by using intermetallic interaction and high specific surface area; at the same time, porous materials such as foamed nickel and foamed copper are used as electrode substrates to build a three-dimensional conductive network to promote electron transmission and gas diffusion. In the electrode preparation process, electrodeposition, electroless plating or spraying processes are used to uniformly load the catalyst on the surface of the substrate to ensure the full exposure and stable attachment of catalytic sites.

In terms of performance characteristics, non-precious metal water electrolysis electrodes have three advantages: "high catalytic activity, long cycle life, and low cost". In alkaline electrolyte, the hydrogen evolution overpotential can be as low as 100-250mV (@10mA/cm²), and the oxygen evolution overpotential can be as low as 200-350mV (@10mA/cm²), close to the performance of precious metal catalysts; after cycling for 5000 hours at a current density of 1A/cm², the performance decay is less than 10%; the material cost is only 1/10-1/50 of that of precious metal electrodes, significantly reducing the production cost of green hydrogen.

Application fields are concentrated in the water electrolysis hydrogen production industry: in alkaline water electrolysis (AWE), they are used as cathodes and anodes to realize efficient hydrogen evolution and oxygen evolution reactions; in proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE), they replace precious metal catalysts to reduce equipment costs; in solid oxide water electrolysis (SOEC), they adapt to high-temperature environments to improve hydrogen production efficiency; in addition, they can be applied to seawater hydrogen production, waste electrolyte resource utilization and other scenarios to expand the application boundaries of water electrolysis hydrogen production.

In the future, new electrode materials for water electrolysis hydrogen production will further explore cutting-edge technologies such as multi-metal composite and single-atom catalysis, develop non-precious metal catalysts with higher activity and stronger stability, and optimize the industrial preparation process of electrodes to promote their application in large-scale green hydrogen production, providing technical support for global energy transformation and the realization of "dual carbon" goals.