Hydrogen production using water plasmolysis

Abstract

Recent developments in reactor modification and material testing have turned out to have an improved conversion efficiency and increased hydrogen concentration by using different plasma configurations. This study will help to recover the energy crisis present in the rural areas or remote areas of Pakistan by employing the plasmolysis technique. This study is divided into three steps. In first step, a unique corona-DBD hybrid plasma macro reactor was designed and fabricated. The universal macro reactor is designed in such a way that this reactor can be used from the upside-down as well as from the downside-up orientation, and these two sides are separated by using a grade 1 borosilicate diffuser. This reactor configuration enables the swift migration of water and the constituent species such as OH and H through the borosilicate diffuser without creating the pressure drop in the macro reactor. In the second step, the plasma is generated by connecting the positive and negative electrode with a power supply and a comprehensive study to optimize the operating parameters according to the hydrogen energy yield (g/kWh), hydrogen concentration (ppm), and reactor conversion efficiency was carried out. The optimization of the operating conditions proceeds by quantifying the produced hydrogen by collecting the gas in the collecting bag, and connecting with ait hydrogen analyzer to measure the hydrogen concentration. In the third step, the experiment was performed by changing the catalyst beads using glass beads, PZT ferroelectric material, and with empty catalytic channel. After the reaction, the result obtained by glass beads and PZT ferroelectric material were compared with the empty channel. In the detailed parametric study, the parameters that were investigated include water flow rate, argon flow rate, voltage, external electrode length or Length to diameter ratio (L/D), and the optimized parametric conditions were found to be 210 mL/h, 24 L/h, 6.3 kV pk-pk, and 2.2 L/D ratios, respectively, at the atmospheric pressure and 20.16 kHz frequency. At these optimized condition, PZT catalytic beads exhibited the best performance for hydrogen energy yield, hydrogen concentration, and reactor conversion efficiency, which were 22.8 g/kWh, 757 ppm and 13.61%, respectively. The experimental study achieved 76% energy conversion and the PZT ferroelectric give 23% higher performance than that of the empty channel.