Hydrogen is the way to go to reduce petroleum consumption.

Got the catalyst used here:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28953-x

' In this work we show that a capillary-fed cell, employing a known NiFeOOH oxygen evolution electrocatalyst on the anode and Pt/C hydrogen evolution electrocatalyst on the cathode, tested at 80–85 °C with 27 wt% KOH electrolyte, yields water electrolysis with performance that exceeds conventional, bubbled control cells, and commercial alkaline and PEM cells.'

' State-of-the-art PEM electrolysers require 1–3mg/cm2 of platinum group metals (iridium and ruthenium-based oxides) to catalyse oxygen evolution at the anode. The Henry Royce study on materials for low-carbon hydrogen production estimated
that over 27 years of the 9 tonne/year global iridium production would be required to develop 1TW of PEM electrolyser capacity, which is clearly a limitation. It is estimated a 40-fold reduction in PEM electrolyser iridium loading is required for
large-scale electrolysis. High demand for iridium, long processing times, limited supply, and an undiversified supply chain have already caused the price of the metal to increase nearly four-fold, from $1,670/Oz at the start of December 2020 to $6,000/Oz by the end of March 2021. Without new materials solutions to reduce iridium loading in PEM electrolysers, volatility in iridium price and lack of availability will impact the viability of large-scale PEM electrolysis'

https://www.royce.ac.uk/content/uploads/2021/06/Royce-Hydrogen-PEM-Catalysts-Summary.pdf

So apparently half as much as the very best?

Further to this rather solitary discussion, which seems to interest no one except myself!, the remaining questions would appear to be maintenance and durability.

From the Nature article:

' The CFE cell also demonstrated sustained stable performance over extended periods from 1 working day to 30 days continuously at 80 °C and room temperature, respectively, with periodic replenishment of the consumed water to the reservoir (Supplementary Fig. 10). Water spontaneously migrated from the reservoir up the separator, possibly under an osmotic as well as a capillary impulse to counteract increases in the KOH concentration in the separator due to water consumption at the electrodes. No KOH build up or crystallisation was observed in or on the separator.'

The higher efficiency in respect to catalyst use would appear to be inherent to the bubble free interface with the catalyst, would be my guess.

There would appear to be good hope of durability.

@yoatman.

Only the numerate are aware that we need hydrogen to decarbonise.

Folk like the IPCC for instance.

So clearly any intelligent discussion is outside your abilities

Have a lovely bath in your prejudices!

But:

See christiaan richter's insightful comment on the Nature article, explaining why we need long term testing to prove whether or not this works one way or another.

There is also important fundamental work going on in understanding what is important in how small pores work, and surprisingly whether they are hydrophobic or hydrophilic appears to be more important than the number of pores:

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-graphene-oxide-membranes-reveal-unusual.html

This has implications for all sorts of things, not just fuel cells, from water filtration to desalination.

Hi sd.

As an advocate of nuclear power for 6 decades or so, their ability to produce hydrogen sure can improve the economics.

But one of the reasons I am more dubious than many here about BEVs, as well as the cost of the batteries using current chemistries, is the difficulty in providing power when it is actually needed using renewables.

Hydrogen and other chemicals provide the needed storage to bridge the gap.

With nuclear, you can essentially provide power when it is needed, so they work far better with BEV cars.

So with a lot of nuclear in the energy system, it is far easier to provide charging when it is needed for BEVs.

Just as 'principled opposition' to nuclear power has hindered low carbon electricity for decades, so immoderate advocacy of BEVs whilst simultaneously rejecting nuclear power, which is way easier to use to provide charging for them, seems to me to be fallacious and unrealistic.

Posting from Christian's critique:

' 3. The nice de-convolution of contributions to high efficiency the authors did on page 7 of the main text suggests that the main benefit (reduced voltage) come from using i) the PES separator and ii) making sure the anode has a proper electrical contact. The benefits reported in this section due to the bubble mitigation measures are minor. The sPES appears to be the key ingredient.
4. This hypothesis answers the mystery discussed in the reviewer documents of "where does the KOH go". I.e. it provides the KOH sink that the reviewers are puzzling over.
5. This hypothesis explains the relatively large (compared to conventional cells) voltage/performance decay with long term operation (1 month data)'

As he notes, long term tests are the way to go.

@yoatman:

Why are you putting your own comment and interpretation into quote marks as though it were a quote of what is said in the article or from Shell?

To mislead and misrepresent, it would appear.

Some just have the bad habit of always biting off more than they can chew.