Fundamental understanding of Hydrogen Evolution Reaction for a new generation of nickel-based electrocatalysts in alkaline water and chlor-alkali electrolysis

The increasing energy demand is becoming one of the major global challenges of modern time, causing both economic and existential crises. We are faced with either burning more fossil fuels, which has already caused irreparable damage to the planet or racing to find alternative and clean ways of producing, capturing and utilizing energy. One of the strategies is converting sustainable energy such as wind and solar into chemical fuels that can be flexibly stored and transported. Hydrogen gas is an ideal candidate because of the highest energy density among chemical fuels and zero emission of pollutants during chemical conversion. Electrochemical production of hydrogen from aqueous electrolytes is one of the more promising approaches that fits into the clean and sustainable energy cycle, as long as the electricity for the electrolysis is supplied by a carbon neutral renewable source. Therefore besides making hydrogen economy more efficient also the production of chlorine and sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) would greatly benefit from advancements in the technology. Currently, one of the most used non-PGM metals in industrial-scale alkaline water and (neutral) chlor-alkali electrolysis is nickel, which is considered an old technology that works well enough. The sluggish hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) on metal surfaces is undoubtedly the most studied electrochemical reaction. An enormous path towards the establishment of the fundamental electrocatalysis was paved through the kinetic studies of hydrogen-electrochemistry by virtue of its relatively simple reaction mechanism. While platinum and platinum-based materials are the most active catalysts for HER in alkaline media, cost-effective nickel and its alloys are the materials of choice for the alkaline and chlor-alkali electrolyzer cathodes. To combine the best of both worlds, the search for more active and less expensive catalysts for HER still continues. This project will through extensive materials design, different characterization, computational modelling and artificial intelligence advance the fundamental understanding of HER on nickel-based cathode catalysts and utilize this knowledge to develop a new generation of nickel catalysts with 10-times higher activity than state of the art.