The study authors assembled a prototype unit that produces hydrogen using electrolysis of an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide. The latter is a caustic alkali, which enters a special chamber equipped with electrodes and divided in the middle by a membrane. Typically, such devices use nickel disks as electrodes. However, Tomsk scientists suggested that the efficiency of hydrogen production could be increased if the disks were made of a porous alloy based on nickel aluminides. High-temperature synthesis of the alloy occurred during a thermal explosion.
The prototype plant produced about 11 litres of hydrogen per hour, but scientists are planning to increase its output and create an H2 storage system. “The use of electrolysis hydrogen generators has several advantages. First, it is the ability to convert electrical energy into gas, which can be stored in compressed form in special cylinders. There is great interest in using them where renewables such as solar panels and wind turbines have already been introduced,” the Tomsk Scientific Center quotes one of the authors of the study, Vsevolod Petrov.
Obtaining new materials to produce H2 is one of the most popular topics of applied research in hydrogen energy. In particular, scientists from the Ufa University of Science and Technology and the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics discovered 67 new compounds involving halogens (chlorine, bromine, fluorine and iodine) that can be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen under the sunlight. The most effective compounds, the researchers found, were zinc, chlorine and iodine, as well as zinc, bromine and iodine, which could convert solar energy into hydrogen with an efficiency of 22%.This figure is in the efficiency range of most electrolysis units (10-30%).
