Dissolvable HIP Space-Holders Enabling more Cost Effective and Sustainable Manufacture of Hydrogen Electrolyzers

Dissolvable HIP Space-Holders Enabling more Cost Effective and Sustainable Manufacture of Hydrogen Electrolyzers

Iain Berment-Parr, Owen Larkin, Bea Howarth, Kieran Bullivant

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Abstract. Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) electrolyzers are a key to the future of global hydrogen production. However, current systems rely on titanium components manufactured through energy and resource intensive processes which make up a large proportion of the overall capital cost of an electrolyzer stack. In this work circular economy principles have been applied to investigate net shape powder manufacturing routes for these titanium plate and porous film components. Approaches include (1) direct HIP of waste stream materials such as un-melted titanium sponge fines or subtractive machining swarf (2) net shape manufacturing of complex geometries using innovative dissolvable salt space holding inserts (3) in-situ nitriding methods (4) streamlining a large number of processing stages within the existing supply chain. In order to assess the environmental impact of the proposed manufacturing routes an embodied carbon analysis was conducted comparing the emissions potentially generated via this powder process versus the traditional supply chain.

Keywords
Powder Hot Isostatic Pressing, Shape Holding Insert, Porous Structure, Titanium, Salt, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Aluminate, Hydrogen, Electrolyzer, Fuel Cell

Published online 12/8/2023, 7 pages
Copyright © 2023 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA

Citation: Iain Berment-Parr, Owen Larkin, Bea Howarth, Kieran Bullivant, Dissolvable HIP Space-Holders Enabling more Cost Effective and Sustainable Manufacture of Hydrogen Electrolyzers, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 38, pp 22-28, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644902837-4

The article was published as article 4 of the book Hot Isostatic Pressing

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

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