Generation of Hydrogen Gas by Direct Solar water splitting For Use as Fuel

Abstract

Hydrogen consumption worldwide has become part of everyday life demand from different people for cooking and fueling powered machines like motors, hydrogen cars and so many other machines. However, this has led to increased forest cover depletion and extraction of non-renewable resources such as coal, oil and others which significantly have a great negative impact on the environment like pollution, global warming and other effects. Therefore in this project, sun (a renewable resource) has been employed and water to produce a clean and cheap hydrogen gas to be used as fuel by direct solar water splitting process with only water as its emission. The main objective of the project was to produce hydrogen gas using solar energy that can be used as a fuel. This was done by designing and constructing an electrolysis kit that acted as the reaction chamber and powered by a solar panel whose charge was stored in a 12 V battery. The gas was successfully produced and the confirmatory test was done using a glowing split which produced a squeaky pop sound. Further more, some parameters were varied like variations in voltage at constant NaCI solution concentration which was 15.6 g cmð€€€3 and variations in NaCI solution concentration at constant voltage which was 10 V. These variations were carried out at different time intervals. Finally, it was observed that the increase in voltage applied at the electrodes and the increase in the solution concentration resulted into an increase in hydrogen gas production and their reduction also decreases the volume of the gas. The maximum volume of hydrogen gas, 73 cm3 was produced at 12 V in 12 minutes and 56 cm3 at 20 g of NaCI in 12 minutes. In addition, the minimum volume of hydrogen gas, 3 cm3 was produced at 6 V in 2 minutes and 6 cm3 at 10 g in 2 minutes. However, the electrolysis process to take place for a long period of time, more research and care must be put on investigation of durable and non-harmful electrodes so as to continuously produce hydrogen gas in large quantities and also hydrogen storage systems must be put in place for proper storage of the gas without risk taking.