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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Marc Secanell GallartORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2025 The Authors. Published by American Chemical SocietyProton exchange membrane water electrolyzers (PEMWEs) are expected to play a crucial role in the global green energy transition during the 21st century. They provide a versatile and sustainable solution for generating hydrogen with very high purity in combination with renewable energies, such as solar and wind. Despite their promise, PEMWEs face several critical problems, including high costs, performance limitations, and durability challenges, particularly at low iridium (Ir) loading on the anode. Advancing next-generation PEMWEs requires extensive work on materials engineering of all cell components, including the catalyst layer (CL), membrane, porous transport layer (PTL), bipolar plate (BPP), and gasket. This task must be performed with the complementary contribution of different modeling and characterization techniques. This review presents a critical perspective from academia, research centers, and industry, mapping main developments, remaining gaps, and strategic pathways to advance PEMWE technology. A focus is devoted to key aspects, such as operation at low Ir loading, membrane durability, multiscale transport layers, porous and non-porous flow fields, multiphysics modeling, and multipurpose characterization techniques, which are thoroughly discussed. By unifying these topics, this review provides readers with the essential knowledge to grasp current developments and tackle tomorrow’s challenges in PEMWE engineering.
Author(s): Garcia-Salaberri PA, van Eijk L, Bangay W, Ferner KJ, Ha MH, Moore M, Perea I, Kusoglu A, Secanell M, Das PK, Firas N, Pylypenko S, Novy M, Yandrasits M, Saha SC, Bayat A, Litster S, Zenyuk IV
Publication type: Review
Publication status: Published
Journal: ACS Applied Energy Materials
Year: 2025
Volume: 8
Issue: 18
Pages: 13050-13121
Print publication date: 22/09/2025
Online publication date: 11/09/2025
Acceptance date: 29/08/2025
ISSN (electronic): 2574-0962
Publisher: American Chemical Society
URL: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.5c01989
DOI: 10.1021/acsaem.5c01989
