Direct Seawater Splitting by Forward Osmosis Coupled to Water Electrolysis

Scalable, accessible, and affordable renewable energy demands commensurately scalable, accessible, and affordable energy storage. Foremost in this pursuit is hydrogen gas, which may be generated through electrochemical water splitting. Whereas conventional electrochemical water splitting relies upon molecularly pure water, recent efforts have shifted toward integrating natural water sources, the most abundant of which is seawater. Herein we report a means by which forward osmosis may be exploited to enable electrochemical seawater splitting with no loss in efficiency while using earth-abundant metal catalysts. By coupling these processes, we demonstrate an essential design element wherein both the anode and cathode are protected from the seawater source.