MXenes in polymer electrolyte membrane hydrogen fuel and electrolyzer cells

Electrolyzer cells (ECs) and hydrogen fuel cells (FCs) have efficiencies that may be further improved. Additionally, they suffer from degradation, durability, and high costs. While improvements are pursued also through novel designs, considerable literature has reported advances sought through novel materials such as MXenes as electrodes in the polymer electrolyte membranes (PEM) design. MXenes have interesting properties which can be further optimized through specific tuning. Strategies for improving the material activity, such as optimizing active sites by termination modification, metal-atom doping, and design of nanostructures to increase the active sites, may produce benefits. However, there is a lack of real-world applications of MXenes to PEM hydrogen FCs and ECs. Almost the totality of the works in the literature focuses on the material in isolation and on the optimization of only one parameter at a time to advance the specific application. Current studies do not include the fabrication of specific components which could benefit from MXenes’ material properties to outperform within current systems. To develop specific products based on MXenes, there is a clear need for a system approach, based on prototyping and testing of the component within the system, to prove the advantages of the new material compared to current working options.