Large-sized nanostructure electrodes for anion exchange membrane water electrolysis

One of challenges for industrial water electrolysis is to achieve large-sized electrodes with high structural uniformity and reaction stability. Here, catalyst electrodes of water electrolyzer with delicate nanostructures are fabricated through a facile corrosion engineering and ion regulation co-strategy. Herein the corrosion engineering is an energy efficient (60 °C, 10 min) and scalable route to transforming the commercial nickel foam into catalytic active materials, while the introduction of suitable anions in solutions induces the formation of ordered vanadium (V)-doped RuNi nanoparticles (denoted as V-RuNi) and tungsten (W)-doped NiFe nanowire arrays (denoted as W-NiFe) available to catalyze hydrogen/oxygen evolution reactions. The ion doping effect is proposed to explain the enhanced catalytic activity. Then an anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolyzer (electrode area: 19 cm × 19 cm) is assembled and operates stably for 200 h at a high current of 10 A with negligible degradation. This work provides a research paradigm to realize the large-area fabrication of low-cost catalyst electrodes for industrial hydrogen generation via water electrolysis.