International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 2, Issue 4, April-2011 1

ISSN 2229-5518

Anomalous Hydrogen Production during

Photolysis of NaHCO3 Mixed Water

Muhammad Shahid, Noriah Bidin, Yacoob Mat Daud, Muhammad Talha, M.Inayat ullah

AbstractProduction and enhancement of hydrogen on large scale is a goal towards the revolution of green and cheap energy. Utilization of hydrogen energy has many attractive features, including energy renewability, flexibility, and zero green house gas emissions. In this current research the production and the enhancement of hydrogen from the NaHCO3 mixed water have been investigated under the action of diode pumped solid state laser with second harmonic of wavelength 532nm. The efficiency of the hydrogen and oxygen yields was found to be greater than the normal Faradic efficiency. The parametric dependence of the yields as a function of laser irradiation time, Laser focusing effect and other parameters of the electrolysis fundamentals were carefully studied.

Index TermsPhoto catalysis, Electrolysis of water, Hydrogen, Laser interaction, Electrical signals, Oxygen.

1. INTRODUCTION

—————————— • ——————————

e are at the edge of an era of energy crises. The cur- rent energy sources are not able to handle the incom- ing huge population needs. Hydrogen is used at large

scale for production of ammonia, for refining the petroleum and also refining the different metals such as uranium, cop- per, zinc, tungsten and lead etc. The main source of energy on earth is fossil fuels which cause severe pollutions and cannot last for long time use. Nuclear energy is very expen- sive and having disposal problems. The other sources such as tidal and wind schemes are not sufficient. The solar, thermal and hydral energy sources are feasible but required a lot of capital. An alternative source is water, which is cheap, clean and everlasting source of global energy

Hydrogen gas can be easily obtained by the electro- lysis. However, direct decomposition of water is very diffi- cult in normal condition. The pyrolysis reaction occurs at high temperatures above 3700Co. 1) Anomalous hydrogen generation during plasma electrolysis was already reported.

2-5) Access hydrogen generation by laser induced plasma

electrolysis was reported recently. 6-9)

Water in the liquid state has the extremely high ab- sorption coefficient at a wavelength of 2.9 µm.10) The effect of generation of an electric signal, when IR-laser radiation having the power density below the plasma formation thre- shold interacts with a water surface, was discovered by.11) The electrical signals induced by lasers were already re- ported.12,13) A lot of research has been done on photo cata- lytic hydrogen production. The photo catalytic splitting of water using semiconductors has been widely studied. Many scientists produce hydrogen from water by using different photo catalysts in water and reported hydrogen by the inte- raction of lasers.14-18) In addition to this photolysis of wa- ter has been studied using UV light.19) Solar energy has been used to obtained Hydrogen from water by photo cata-

lytic process.20) But these methods are not economical and the yields of hydrogen is not to an extent.

Our work on lasers has revealed the important para- meters which played a critical role in the enhancement of hydrogen from water by laser. Most of the research work basis on photo catalysis has carried out by flash lamps. A very little work is done by lasers.21) Since laser light has special properties like monochromatic, coherent, intense and polarize, so it was of great interest to use the laser beams as an excitation source in water. The second parameter is that the most of the work has done on light water, distilled water and heavy water; we have used drinking water for produc- tion of hydrogen. We have used NaHCO3 electrolyte. The diode pumped solid state laser having a green light of wave length 532 nm was used as an irradiation source. We inves- tigated the different parameters of the laser by monitoring the rate of evolved gases i.e. hydrogen and oxygen. We in- spected the dependence of hydrogen and oxygen yields as a laser exposure time, the effect of laser beam power and the laser focusing effect.

2. Experimental Setup

A schematic diagram of the hydrogen reactor is shown in Figure 2.The reactor contained a glass made hydrogen fuel cell having dimension 10 inch x 8 inch. Fuel cell con- tained a window for irradiation of laser, an inlet for water and electrolyte, two outlets for hydrogen and oxygen gasses, an inlet for temperature probe and a D.C power supply mod- el ED-345B.Two electrodes steel and Aluminum were ad- justed in the fuel cell. A CCD camera and a computer trig- gered with fuel cell for grabbing, a multimeter and gas flow meter are arranged with the fuel cell. The diode pumped solid state laser with second harmonics DPSS LYDPG-1 model DPG-2000 having green light of wavelength 532 nm was placed near the fuel cell for irradiation during electroly-

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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 2, Issue 4

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sis of water. The DPSS laser spectrum is shown in figure

1.The drinking water 40 ml mixed with 10mL NaHCO3. In order to start the electrolysis current was applied by D.C source through steal and aluminum electrodes. The laser beam from diode pumped laser was incident on water through window of the fuel cell. The hydrogen and oxygen produced were measured by gas flow meter. The laser beam power was measured by a power meter model Nova Z01500.The temperature of the water was measured by a Temperature probe thermocouple thermometer and mercury thermometer. The current was measured with the help of multimeter. The entire experimental run time was 90 mi- nutes. The data was recorded after every minute of the run.


Figure1: DPSS laser spectrum


Figure 3. Oscillograms of electrical signal Peaks [7]

A

B

C


O2 D

H2
C PC

o

Figure 4. SEM micrographs corrosion on the electrode

DPSS Laser

Reaction Mechanism

CCD

- + Camera

A

H 2 O + h v

- e-lectr-oly-t e --- H

+ 1 O

2 2

----------- (1)

Power

Supply DC Source

Power meter

The energy deposited to the water

E = VIt + hv

The criteria for splitting water is

E ? Ed

------------- (2)
Figure2: Schematic diagram of hydrogen reactor
and

E = Ed + K H

+ K O --------------------(3)

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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 2, Issue 4 April-2011 3

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Where E is the total energy deposited to the water, is the laser energy, V is the applied D.C voltage, I is the D.C current, t is the current rising time ,Ed is the bond dissocia- tion energy of water, KH is the kinetic energy of hydrogen and KO is the kinetic energy of oxygen.

3. Result and discussion

In order to investigate the role of electrolyte as a photo catalyst for water splitting under the influence of laser, various experiments were performed. It has been observed that various important factors affected the yield of hydro- gen and oxygen.
(i) Effect of laser Power (ii) Laser focusing effect (iii) Effect of Temperature

3.1 Effect of Laser power

3.2 Laser focusing effect

It was revealed that the laser focusing effect also af- fected the yields. The experimental facts showed that when the hydrogen reactor was near the focus of the laser beam, the yield of hydrogen was found to be large. As long as the distance from the focus was increased the production ob- served to be less. Figure 6 represents this effect. The maxi- mum yield 0.000051 cc was observed at 14 cm distance from the focus where as minimum yield 0.000042 cc was observed at 68 cm from the focal point. It was due to the fact that when reactor was near the focus the intensity of beam was large, at that point powers density became large, so yield of hydrogen found to be large. Similarly when the distance form the focus was increased power density also decreased, so hydrogen yield also observed to be less. The non linear behavior of the curve in the figure 6 shows the moment of the focus point due to stirring of the water. At a distance of 40 cm from the laser focus a sudden change in hydrogen production was observed. This sudden change was may be due to external disturbance produced by the stirring effect.
The one of the important factors which affected the product yields was Laser power. This effect is shown in figure 5. It has been detected that hydrogen and oxygen yields increased with increase in laser input power. Initial- ly yields were found to be increased linearly with laser power. When the laser power reached at 1 watt a sudden increase was seen in the yields. At this point the hydrogen yield was found to be 0.17cc where as oxygen yield was at

0.1cc. It was due to a sharp electrical signal generated by the laser. This electrical signal peak had enough energy to overcome the bond dissociation energy of water. The hy- drogen yield was found to be greater than the oxygen yield. It was all due to the fact a lot of oxygen was used to oxidize the electrodes. So a lot of oxygen was used in cor- rosion process shown Figure 4.

0.000052

0.000051

0.00005

0.000049

0.000048

0.000047

0.000046

0.000045

0 20 40 60 80

Distancefrom focus (cm)

Figure 6. Hydrogen yield versus distance from the

laser focus

0.3

0.25

0.2

0.15

0.1

Hydrogen Yi eld

O xygen yiel d

3.3 Effect of Temperature

The other important factor which affected the product yields was the temperature of the water. It has been observed that temperature of the water rose with time.
It was because of Joule heating effect.

0.05

H = I 2 Rt

(Joules)

0

0 1 2 3

Laser power(W atts )

Figure 5. A graph of laser power versus hydrogen and oxygen yields
Where H is heat dissipation, R is the resistance of water and electrolyte and t is the current rising time. Figure 4 shows this effect. It has also observed that as long as tem- perature raised yield of hydrogen and oxygen also in- creased (Figure 7). It was due to the fact that as tempera- ture of water raised, bonding of the water became week and splitting of water became prominent. The Figure 8 represents the relationship between the laser exposure time

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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 2, Issue 4 April-2011 4

ISSN 2229-5518


and the efficiency of hydrogen and oxygen yields. It was observed that the efficiency of yields increased rapidly af- ter one minute of the run and reached at 95%.After that efficiency slightly decreased 90% and maintained this val- ue throughout the run of experiment. This efficiency found to be greater than normal faradic efficiency.

0.45

0.4

0.35

0.3

Proc. ICCF-7, Vancouver, Canada, 279, (2000).

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[4] N.N. Il'ichev, L.A. Kulevsky, P.P. Pashinin “Photovoltaic effect in water induced by a 2.92-µm Cr3+: Yb3+: Ho3+: YSGG laser” Quantum Elec- tronics 35(10) 959-961 (2005).

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[6] Muhammad Shahid,Noriah Bidin,Yacoob Mat” Access Hydrogen production by photolysis of K2CO3 mixed water.” Proc. FSPGS2010,

0.25

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05

0

300 301 302 303 304 305

Temprature(K)

H2 yield without laser

H2 with laser

Malaysia, 179, (2010).

[7] Muhammad Shahid,Noriah Bidin,Yacoob Mat ,”Access hydrogen generation by laser ablation during plasma electrolysis of drinking wa- ter .” Proc. IGCESH2010, Malaysia, (2010).

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(2010).


Figure 7. Comparison of hydrogen yields with and without laser

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

[9] Muhammad Shahid,Noriah Bidin,Yacoob Mat ,”Laser induced photo- catalysis of electrolyte during plasma electrolysis of drinking water .” Proc. ICSM2010, Malaysia, (2010).

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0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Figure 8. A graph of laser exposure time versus efficiency of yields

3 CONCLUSION

The experimental results revealed that, the diode pumped solid state laser with second harmonics having a green light of wave length 532nm is highly efficient in photo splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen dur- ing plasma electrolysis of NaHCO3 water. The laser pow- er, focusing effect and temperature of the water have a significant role in enhancement of the hydrogen produc- tion photolysis of water.

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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 2, Issue 4 April-2011 5

ISSN 222S-5518

[21] Kia zeng, dongka zhang "Re:ent progress in alkaline water ela:trolysis for hydrogen production and applications''progre;s in energy and combustion sderce (2009).

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