Today's economy is base on the use of fossil fuels, whose reserves are limited. In addition, the use of these resources has a negative impact on the environment due to the emission of polluting gases and CO2. Therefore it is necessary to replace fossil fuels by renewable energy. Renewable energy can be easily converted to electricity to direct use, but electricity can not be stored in large quantities. In this context, hydrogen could be used as an energy carrier. It is possible to produce hydrogen by electrolysis of water. Hydrogen is then used via a fuel cell to supply electricity and heat. This process produces only water which will then be re-used by the electrolysis.This thesis focuses on hydrogen production by water electrolysis in acidic medium by the PEM (proton exchange membrane) technology. The goal is to replace the platinum, catalyst for proton reduction at the cathode by cobalt-oxime complexes.The first chapter describes various aspects of water electrolysis and different catalyst studied in the literature.The second chapter describes different characterization techniquesChapter three describes the synthesis and catalytic activity of the complexes of cobalt-oxime in solution in acetonitrile towards proton reduction into hydrogen.Chapter four presents the early work obtained using cobalt complexes oxime instead of platinum in PEM electrolyzers.
