| dc.description.abstract | Water electrolysis hydrogen production is a common method for hydrogen production currently. Since hydrogen has a clean and environmentally friendly feature, it has considerable potential to be the energy resource in the future. If acid and alkaline waste solutions are used to produce hydrogen for industrial use, it can reduce the proliferation of industry waste to achieve the purpose of clean production.
In this study, using nickel sheets as electrodes, and applying two solutions of sulfuric acid and potassium hydroxide as the electrolytes contained in dual cells which are separated by a Nafion proton exchange membrane, water electrolysis hydrogen production is studied. By the use of potentiostat and gas flow meter to record the experimental data, the effects of working parameters, such as concentrations, single or dual-cell, and kind of electrolytes, on the resulted current, hydrogen production and energy efficiency are investigated. In addition, the influences of electrolyte temperature, thickness of Nafion and applied voltage upon the enhancement of hydrogen production and energy efficiency are also studied.
Results show that dual cell using potentiaostat at 5.5V with a Nafion N212 yields a energy efficiency up to 65.9%. At concentration of 0.25M and 0.5M, energy efficiencies in dual cell with different electrolytes are superior to that in single-cell. If the temperature is increased to 40 ℃, the energy efficiency could be increased to 68.1%, while it could even be raised to 80.1% at 50 ℃. The amount of hydrogen production are also increased significantly at the same time. If proton exchange membrane Nafion N211 was used instead of Nafion N212, the energy efficiency was improved, and even as high as 80.7%. Energy efficiency can also be improved when the applied voltage is low, e.g. , as potential at 3.5V, the energy efficiency is even enhanced to 89.9%. | en_US |