Application of Nanomaterials on Hydrogen Technology for Residential Applications in Isolated Areas

ESTEBAN A FRANCESCHINI

Puerto Madryn

Workshop; Desarrollo de materiales para energia sustentable off-shore; 2019

UTN FRCH - MinCyT

In the last decades hydrogen has attracted much attention of the scientific community as a vector of clean energy that can be easily obtained using alternative energy sources. This hydrogen can be used to generate electrical energy through its use in fuel cells, or used in a similar way to the use of natural gas.Currently there is a growing demand for devices that can be used in isolated areas, simplifying the infrastructure that needs to be transported in campaigns. Usually, that equipment needs power sources, heavy electrical generators that require fuel transportation, with the infrastructure and associated costs.In this framework, it is sought to develop hydrogen production systems that can be used as a core for the subsequent development of different complex systems, such as tools, heating systems, small recharging stations, and other residential systems, reducing the cost of production of devices.For this it is necessary to develop compact, high efficiency hydrogen production systems with good durability that can be connected to different energy sources, including alternative energies, and that are versatile enough to be adapted to different applications.In this sense, it is necessary to modify the nickel electrodes normally used in alkaline electrolyzers, for more economical and efficient electrodes. In recent years, nickel-based hybrid electrodes have attracted attention since they have particular properties due to synergistic effects between the materials used. Improvements were also reported when using electrodeposited nickel coatings instead of massive metals. The electrodeposition process allows to obtain not only pure nickel but also different alloys modifying only the mixture of catalyst precursors. In this way, the efficiency of the catalysts could be increased without having a great impact on the cost of the electrodes. Nickel plating by electrodeposition allows the cost of electrodes to be reduced by almost 63% per square meter of electrode [1].Our line of work includes the development of new high efficiency hybrid materials such as electrocatalysts for the generation of hydrogen, testing in conventional alkaline electrolyzer conditions, analysis of early aging, as well as the development and construction of peripheral devices.With this objective we have developed different catalysts that include the use of NiCo alloys, NiMo (in collaboration with INTI) electrodeposited on steel plates; hybrid nickel/nanomaterials catalysts such as Ni/TiO2, Ni/MoS2, Ni/reduced graphene oxide, Ni/nitrogenated Graphene, etc., with the aim of increasing the efficiency of electrocatalysis using scalable and applicable catalysts to developed electrolyser prototypes in our group [2,3].The development of this type of technologies will lead to reduce the cost associated with campaigns in isolated areas, due to the decrease in the use of fuels, the transport of electric generators, H2 tubes, etc.The technological knowledge constructed in this project will allow the development of future prototypes in collaboration with groups of CNEA and UNSAM, as well as its industrial scaling through our collaboration with INTI.