Cathode Material Development in the Past Decade for H₂ Production from Microbial Electrolysis Cells

Cathode materials are critical for microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) development and its contribution to achieving a circular hydrogen economy. There are numerous reports on the progress in MEC cathode development during the past decade, but a comprehensive review on the quantitative comparisons and critical assessments of these works is lacking. This Review summarizes and analyzes the published literature on MEC cathode and catalyst development in the past decade, providing an overview of new materials examined during this time period and quantitative analyses on system performance and trends in materials development. Collected data indicate that hybrid materials have become the most popular catalyst candidate while nickel materials also attract increasing interest and exploration. However, the dilemma between higher H₂ production rate and larger MEC volume remains and still requires more investigation of novel MEC cathode catalysts and configurations to offer a solution.