Dramatic improvement of critical current density based on the analogy of boiling and water electrolysis

沸騰と水電解のアナロジーに基づく水電解性能の飛躍的な向上

Renewable energy power generation has received a great deal of attention in recent years. For the demand of using those excess electricity power generated by renewable energy more efficient without wasting, there is a need to develop the alkaline water electrolysis which can transform excess generated electricity into hydrogen, as a large-scale and low-cost electricity storage technology. In the previous research, based on the analogy between boiling and water electrolysis, we applied the cooling method by using honeycomb porous plate, which had succeeded in significantly improving boiling Critical Heat Flux (CHF) to alkaline water electrolysis, and succeeded in improving the Critical Current Density (CCD) of water electrolysis. In order to clarify the mechanism of water electrolysis improvement from microscale, we developed a honeycomb porous electrode creation technology with which honeycomb porous structure can be formed by self-organization process, then plan to build a theoretical model based on the experimental results.

風力・太陽光発電が再生可能エネルギーとしての大量導入が急務だが、需要と供給に時空間的なズレが生じることで、余剰電力を水素に変換して貯蔵する水電解技術の高性能化が重要である。過去に我々は沸騰と水電解のアナロジーを基づき、沸騰超高熱流束冷却に成功したハニカム多孔体を用い、水電解電極面の気液流れを制御することでその性能を大幅に向上させた。今後我々は自己組織化現象により微細構造が制御されるハニカム多孔電極の作成技術を開発し、電解性能向上メカニズムをミクロスケールで解明を行い、理論モデルの構築を検討する。