Recent Advances in Catalyst Materials for PEM Water Electrolysis

Due to the intermittency of renewable energy sources, a need to store and transport energy will increase. Hydrogen production through water electrolysis will provide an excellent way to supplement the intermittency of renewable energy sources. While alkaline water electrolysis is currently the most mature technology, it has drawbacks of low current density, large footprint, gas crossover, etc. The PEM water electrolysis has potential to replace the alkaline electrolysis. However, expensive catalyst material used in the PEM electrolysis has been the bottleneck of widespread use. In this review, we have reviewed recent efforts to reduce catalyst loading in PEM water electrolysis. In core-shell nanostructures, the precious metal catalyst forms a shell while heteroatoms form a core. In this way, the catalyst loading can be significantly reduced while maintaining the catalytic activity. In another approach, a corrosion-resistant support is utilized, which provides a stable platform to impregnate precious metal catalyst.