A Review on Membranes for Anion Exchange Membrane Water Electrolyzers

Abstract

Anion exchange membrane water electrolyzers (AEMWEs) - using water and renewable electricity as the input - provide a sustainable pathway to hydrogen production. AEMWEs perform the cathodic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with modest overpotentials at practical current densities (>1 A cm(-2)). The recent catalysis, component, and system-level breakthroughs have enabled significant improvements in current densities and energetic efficiencies. The challenge, however, is to maintain these impressive activities and efficiencies through long-term operation at scale. High-performance, efficient, stable, and economically viable AEMWEs require high-performance, low-cost, and scalable anion exchange membranes (AEMs). This Review provides an overview of physical, chemical, and transport properties of commercial and non-commercial AEMs. The article discusses the operating principles, structures, characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses of conventional and emerging AEMs, along with their performance and stability implications in AEMWEs. The article highlights the characteristics that have intricate implications on performance, stability, and cost. It discusses recent advances and best practices to combine high-performance, efficiency, stability, and low-cost in a single AEM structure. The Review highlights the trade-offs between AEM characteristics, with an overview of emerging approaches that would overcome performance, stability, and cost challenges. The Review concludes by highlighting the research gaps and providing research directions with the potential to take the technology a step closer to wide-scale deployment.