Principles and implementations of electrolysis systems for water splitting

Abstract

Efforts to develop renewable sources of carbon-neutral fuels have brought a renewed focus to research and development of sunlight-driven water-splitting systems. Electrolysis of water to produce H₂ and O₂ gases is the foundation of such systems, is conceptually and practically simple, and has been practiced both in the laboratory and industrially for many decades. In this Focus article, we present the fundamentals of water splitting and describe practices which distinguish commercial water-electrolysis systems from simple laboratory-scale demonstrations.