Hydrogen Production via Ultrasound-Aided Alkaline Water Electrolysis

Clean energy is a necessity in today's world bearing in mind the undesirable effects of fossil fuel consumption and contributory industries on climate change and human health. The renewable energy resources are introduced as an alternative choice to fossil-based fuels benefiting from abundance, reliability, cleanness in addition to the fact that they are environmentally friendly. Hydrogen as a clean energy carrier is a great candidate for a safer and cleaner future. Alkaline water electrolysis among various hydrogen production methods is a promising technology to produce pure and clean hydrogen. This technology is optimized when coupled with an ultrasonic field resulting in an enhancement in the rate of hydrogen production. The literature studies point out an improvement in mass transfer and 10%-25% energy saving when using the ultrasound. This research work continues the previous study done in this area by investigating the effects of the ultrasound on a conventional water electrolysis cell, furthermore other important parameters were subject of change namely as electrode active surface area and electrolyte solution. The hydrogen generation was measured using a digital hydrogen flowmeter. The average production efficiency of the electrolysis cell was 78%. It was determined that the ultrasound improved the production efficiency by 4.5% and energy efficiency by 1.3%. The act of the ultrasound resulted in bubble removal from the surface of the electrode and the electrolyte solution therefore prepared the electrode surface for the electrochemical reactions thus enhanced the hydrogen generation. 