Advanced Oxygen Evolution Catalyst for Electrolyzer Energy Storage for Lunar Surface Systems

Future NASA lunar missions will require a high efficiency, lightweight, long life, maintenance-free water electrolyzer for energy storage. Anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is the limiting step in water electrolysis to achieve high efficiency and durability for current electrolyzer technology. Current best candidates for OER catalysts comprising of iridium and ruthenium oxides still suffer from high activation overpotential and incur performance losses in the electrolyzer due to non-optimized microstructural properties. In the present proposal, Lynntech proposes an advancement of its proprietary OER catalyst technology through optimization in microstructure and composition of mixed oxides of iridium and ruthenium. Lynntech's optimized catalyst will exhibit lesser overpotentials due to enhanced uniform nanophase properties of electrical conductivity, hydrophilicity and high surface area. In addition, surface modification of the catalyst is proposed to improve the kinetics of the OER reaction at lower current densities and also to improve the stability of the catalyst towards high potential operation during anodic OER. With its present OER catalyst already achieving less than 1.44 V at 200 mA/cm2 at 90 ºC and stable operation even at 2.05 V electrolyzer potentials, Lynntech plans to achieve even lower potentials at 200 mA/cm2 with the proposed advancement of technology.