• The Domingo Martínez Foundation is awarding a grant of €55,000 per year to a CSIC team for a maximum of two years
• The innovation centres on a new concept for membrane electrodes in devices designed to produce hydrogen from water and renewable energy
• Researchers at the Institute of Materials Science in Seville will design and build two industrial-scale demonstrators

The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), through a team from the Institute of Materials Science in Seville (a joint centre of the CSIC and the University of Seville), has secured one of the grants in the materials field awarded annually by the Domingo Martínez Foundation to research and develop a new technology that optimises the production of green hydrogen.

The team from the ICMS’s Nanotechnology in Surfaces and Plasma research group has secured funding for the AEM-CAT project (Scaled-up electrode-membrane assemblies for AEM-technology electrolysers based on catalysts manufactured by sputtering), which aims to improve energy storage systems to make them more efficient, competitive and sustainable.

“It is an honour to receive this grant, which provides us with the resources and commits us to contributing through our work to scaling up CSIC technology for green hydrogen production,” said Francisco Yubero, a CSIC research scientist, after receiving the commemorative plaque awarded by the Domínguez Martínez Foundation. All this took place at a scientific and technical event held at the Council’s Student Residence to mark the Foundation’s 55th anniversary, entitled ‘H2: a challenge for research’, alongside its director, Leire Quintana Ayala.

In this way, the researchers have utilised one of the emerging technologies aimed at producing green hydrogen: low-temperature water electrolysis based on anion-exchange membranes. This technology enables the production of this clean fuel from water and electricity using materials free of noble metals, which makes the process more economical and scalable by replacing costly materials with abundant alternatives, thereby overcoming the main obstacle to its mass commercialisation. Furthermore, this innovation operates at relatively low temperatures (around 60 °C), which facilitates its integration with renewable energy sources.

The key to this innovation lies in the integrated electrode-membrane assemblies within the devices responsible for producing hydrogen from water and renewable energy, which have recently been patented by the CSIC. The aim of this initiative is to transfer and adapt this technology for implementation in the industrial sector. To achieve this, the team aims to improve how the various components of the system fit together and work in tandem, particularly in the areas where the catalyst, the support and the exchange membrane come into contact.

The idea is to design these interfaces in a bespoke manner, as if they were ‘tailor-made’, so that they function more effectively. To this end, the team will use very thin coatings (at the nanometre scale) made from specific metals, which enable the system to be highly efficient in reactions and more resistant and durable even under demanding conditions.

The synthesis and deposition of these catalytic coatings is carried out using physical vapour deposition techniques, which involve vaporising a solid material and subsequently condensing it atom by atom onto the desired surfaces. These processes are carried out using strategies developed in recent years by the Nanotechnology in Surfaces and Plasma research group. It should be noted that this technique is frequently used to develop functional coatings (scratch-resistant, anti-corrosion, low-emissivity, anti-reflective surfaces, etc.) as well as in electronics (chips, sensors, etc.) and solar panels.

The ultimate aim of the project is to design and build technology demonstrators that will enable the validation of these innovative membrane-electrode assemblies in a configuration capable of producing pressurised hydrogen in a real-world operating environment.