HyCycle - Center for renewable hydrogen cycling

A future major change from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources will cause a demand for new processes for energy conversion and storage. The HyCycle Centre has been working on improvements of the efficiency of processes for splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis using polymeric electrolyte membranes, or by photo catalysis, i.e. when the water is split using a combination of sun light and an electrochemical system.
The project has involved research groups and enterprises specialized within theory, biomimetics, synthesis of materials, electrochemistry and surface coating processes. An important aspect is new electrocatalytic materials, which may substitute or reduce the necessary amounts of platinum and iridium dioxide, normally used in PEM water electrolysis. In this connection, theoretical calculations of various materials types were carried out, and furthermore a considerably increased catalytic activity was demonstrated by new alloys of platinum and other metals. Concerning photocatalysis the  process was improved by a new manganese based catalyst.
Besides electrodematerials and photocatalysts HyCycle also worked with aspects of other materials involved, particularly new polymeric electrolytes and more stable construction materials.