Scalable, accessible, and affordable renewable energy demands commensurately scalable, accessible, and affordable energy storage. Foremost in this pursuit is hydrogen gas which may be generated through electrochemical water splitting. Whereas conventional electrochemical water splitting relies upon molecularly pure water recent efforts have shifted towards integrating natural water sources, the most abundant of which is seawater. Herein we report a means by which forward osmosis may be exploited to enable electrochemical seawater splitting with no loss in efficiency while using earth-abundant metal catalysts. By coupling these processes, we demonstrate an essential design element wherein both anode and cathode are protected from the seawater source.

Direct seawater splitting by forward Osmosis coupled to water splitting

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.