Hydrogen generation with acid/alkaline amphoteric water electrolysis

To reduce the energy consumption of the electrolytic hydrogen generation process, we propose a novel approach to generate hydrogen with acidic/alkaline amphoteric water electrolysis, wherein hydrogen is produced inside an acidic solution and oxygen evolved under alkaline condition, and a membrane is employed in the middle of the electrolyzer to restrain neutralization. The electrode polarization is greatly reduced due to the specific arrangement of the acidic/alkaline amphoteric electrolyzer. The rate of hydrogen production achieves over four times higher than that of the alkaline aqueous solution at 2.2V, and the energy consumption is reduced approximately 30% under the current density of 200 mA/cm(2). The investigation of transmembrane potential drop indicates water splitting on the membrane surfaces, which compensates for acid or alkaline loss on-site and maintains the concentration approximately constant during electrolysis process. The acidic/alkaline amphoteric water electrolysis is promising as an energy saving, clean and sustainable hydrogen production technology. (C) 2019 Science Press and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science Press. All rights reserved.

为了降低电解制氢过程的能耗，我们提出了一种利用酸/碱两性水电解制氢的新方法，即在酸性溶液中产生氢气，在碱性条件下析出氧气，并在电解槽中间使用一种膜来抑制中和反应。由于酸/碱两性电解槽的特殊设置，电极极化大大降低。在2.2伏电压下，制氢速率比碱性水溶液高出四倍多，在电流密度为200毫安/平方厘米时，能耗降低了约30%。对跨膜电位降的研究表明，膜表面发生了水的分解，这可就地补偿酸或碱的损失，并在电解过程中使浓度大致保持恒定。酸/碱两性水电解作为一种节能、清洁且可持续的制氢技术很有前景。（C）2019科学出版社和中国科学院大连化学物理研究所。由爱思唯尔出版社和科学出版社出版。版权所有。