Effects of Geometry of Electrodes and Pulsating DC Input on Water Splitting for Production of Hydrogen

Abstract

Electrolytic production of hydrogen from water is gradually gaining its importance among the other conventional processes of hydrogen production in the context of renewable energy source utilization and environmentally clean technology. Worldwide research is being carried out to make the process cost effective. Apart from the different material of construction of electrodes, the geometry is also playing an important role in developing an energy efficient process for electrolytic production of hydrogen.  However, no information is available in the literature on this aspect. The aim of this paper is to study the effect of geometry of electrodes on energy efficiency of water electrolysis and rate of hydrogen production. The experimental results using cylindrical electrodes showed the enhancement of the power efficiency of water electrolysis and the rate of production of hydrogen by 30% and 25%, respectively compared to the data obtained using plate type electrodes. Also, the power efficiency of the water electrolyzer was found to improve by 34% using pulsating DC instead of constant DC input.

Keywords

• Hydrogen; power efficiency; electrode geometry; pulsating DC input