Water Electrolysis Technologies

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the different water electrolysis technologies. In the introduction section, the general characteristics of water electrolysis (thermodynamics, kinetics, efficiency) are described. Main electrolysis technologies used to produce hydrogen and oxygen of electrolytic grade are then described in the following sections. Alkaline water electrolysis is described in Section 2.2, proton-exchange membrane water electrolysis in Section 2.3 and high-temperature water electrolysis in Section 2.4 . For each technology, state-of-the-art performances are analyzed, limitations are identified and some perspectives are discussed.