Publication

Bipolar plates in water electrolysis stacks: understanding basics and electrochemical aspects impacting the energy efficiency during operation

Hubert Girault
2026

Abstract

This tutorial review aims at presenting the concept of electrolysis with a bipolar electrode stack reactor. This design approach is commonly used industrially both for alkaline and PEM water electrolysis for hydrogen production. The goal here is notably to present and discuss the concept of shunt, parasitic and reverse currents, and to show how they affect the faradaic and the energy efficiencies of the electrolysis. These electrolyser design issues largely explain the difficulty to build very large industrial electrolyser plant which are necessary to produce hydrogen at the gigawatt level.

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/3f71ae0c-a186-4ec5-b58a-64882b118d4e

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Hubert Girault
2026

Abstract

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/3f71ae0c-a186-4ec5-b58a-64882b118d4e

About this result

Related concepts (32)

Hydrogen production

Hydrogen production is the family of industrial methods for generating hydrogen gas. As of 2020, the majority of hydrogen (~95%) is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming of natural gas and other light hydrocarbons, partial oxidation of heavier hydrocarbons, and coal gasification. Other methods of hydrogen production include biomass gasification, methane pyrolysis, and electrolysis of water. Methane pyrolysis and water electrolysis can use any source of electricity including solar power.

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