A group of Dutch parties wants to take the lead in the development of a new type of electrolyser. An electrolyser splits water into oxygen and hydrogen. The new generation should have higher efficiency and lower costs compared to the current generation of electrolysers. It will also have a circular design.
It involves a consortium of technical universities and parties. They will work on a new design for an electrolyser in the coming years under the leadership of TNO. TNO claims that, thanks to its knowledge and high-tech manufacturing industry, the Netherlands is excellently positioned to take the lead in this.
"This is about developing state-of-the-art components and stacks for electrolysers and the technology to have them produced by our high-tech industry," explains hydrogen expert Lennart van der Burg of TNO.
Netherlands as indispensable supplier
"The major European electrolyser manufacturers are with our eastern neighbours in Germany, and China is also becoming increasingly active in producing alkaline electrolyser technology. But as with the automotive industry, our country can again distinguish itself by acting as an indispensable supplier of innovative components, stacks and also high-precision production equipment. We can use this to build an ecosystem for our industry. And that is good for the innovation power and earning capacity of the Netherlands."
The project started in May 2023 and will run for five years. With the new electrolyser, the parties aim to take a big step in the development of such equipment. The project is part of the NXTGEN HIGHTECH programme. This programme aims to provide high-tech solutions for a third generation of production technology in six key domains. Within the renewable energy domain of this programme, parties focus not only on green hydrogen energy, but also on new batteries. Green hydrogen is hydrogen produced using sustainably generated energy.
Third generation electrolyser
The electrolyser the parties are working on is a third-generation electrolyser. This is in contrast to many other projects at home and abroad, which are more focused on scaling up the current second-generation electrolyser technology. Further development of the second generation, incidentally, is something TNO is also working on. Within the HyScaling project, for instance, the organisation is working with several Dutch parties on second-generation electrolysers. These perform better and more efficiently than existing electrolysers, and are cheaper. However, the design is broadly the same.
The third generation builds on the design of the second generation. Thus, the parties want to explore all current water-based splitting technologies in conjunction. Specifically, these include PEM, alkaline, SOE and AEM. A new technology that the parties will also investigate is CO2 electrolysis. In this variant, the electrolyser converts bio-based CO2 into various carbon-based products.
Synergies
The research is expected to lead to synergies between different concepts. Especially in terms of high-tech production technologies for electrolyser components and stacks. The new electrolysers should significantly improve performance, consume much less energy and materials, and also be cheaper.
"We are going to work on a revolutionary new architecture with which our country can take the lead globally," says Van den Berg. "Within TNO, we previously developed the technology spatial Atomic Layer Deposition, a method for applying super thin layers of functional materials to large surfaces. That is now being marketed by TNO spin-off SparkNano, one of the consortium participants. sALD is a promising technology in the new design of electrolysers. Thus, each of the parties brings its own expertise."
No use of rare materials
"The third generation will not only perform significantly better, it will also not have to use rare materials. And it offers our high-tech manufacturing industry plenty of opportunities on the international market. However, the Netherlands cannot do it alone and so international cooperation is an absolute requirement for acceleration. TNO is already working with international partners in the Supercell programme."
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Photo: akitada31 via Pixabay
