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Electrolyser development
The generation of high purity hydrogen from water provides a carbon free and scalable path to hydrogen production to meet a component of New Zealand’s energy needs at distributed or centralised production levels.
The process of electrolysis has been known for 200 years and consists simply of the passage of a DC electric current through liquid water (the electrolyte). The overall reaction involves oxygen gas being released at the anode and hydrogen gas released at the cathode.
Our goal is to design a reliable low-cost alkaline based electrolyser that produces pure hydrogen at 1-5 kW levels from renewable electricity (wind, photovoltaics, hydro, wave etc) for use in fuel cells and other applications. We use the strong base potassium hydroxide (KOH) to greatly increase the conductivity of the electrolyte and increase the efficiency of the electrolysis chemistry.
IRL’s electrolyser technology is currently being used to support the production of hydrogen from wind at the Totara Valley demonstration site (read about this under fuel cell applications and demonstrations) and the production of oxygen to support oxygen-blown gasification of lignite coal and biomass with our research partner CRL Energy.