The goal of the PowerMem project is to research new high-performance membranes for solid electrolyte membrane acid water electrolysis (PEMWE) and to develop an in-depth understanding of aging phenomena in membranes. PowerMem builds on the BMBF-funded project Power-MEE, which developed a new membrane-electrode unit fabrication process, new membrane materials, and an understanding of unwanted gas transfer in membranes for PEMWE. Technologically, PowerMem aims to enable high-performance membranes for PEMWE that allow low gas crossover of oxygen and hydrogen and long lifetimes with high conversion efficiencies.
In addition, an understanding of aging phenomena in PEMWE membranes is to be developed in order to be able to estimate the influence of the new material modifications from PowerMem on the aging behavior. For PowerMem, the partners Forschungszentrum Jülich / HI ERN (Prof. Dr.-Ing. Simon Thiele / Dr. Jochen Kerres) with the topics of fabrication and synthesis and the partner Leibniz Universität Hannover (Prof. Dr.-Ing. Richard Hanke-Rauschenbach) with the topics of electrochemical characterization, aging analysis and model-based simulation join forces to bring membrane technology in PEMWEs a significant step forward. In addition, the associated partner Dyneon/3M brings significant input to the project through the fabrication and design of special fluoromaterial based materials for membrane fabrication.