Researchers Successfully Split Seawater for Hydrogen Generation

An international team of researchers led by the University of Adelaide, Australia have successfully split seawater through direct electrolysis without pre-treatment and produced green hydrogen which achieved long-term stability and similar performance to a typical PEM electrolyzer operating in high-purity water. The team used seawater as a feedstock without the need for any pre-treatment processes like reverse osmosis desolation, purification, or alkanization. The advantage of the discovery is that seawater is an almost infinite resource and is considered a natural feedstock electrolyte. It is even more practical for regions with long coastlines and abundant sunlight. The researchers concluded that while seawater electrolysis may still be in early development compared with pure water electrolysis because of electrode side reactions, and corrosion arising from the complexities of using seawater, it shows massive potential. The team said they will work on scaling up the system by using a larger electrolyzer so that it can be used in commercial processes such as hydrogen generation for fuel cells and ammonia synthesis.